Supervision order lifted from Swedish N-plant

Thursday, 23 April 2009

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) has removed a special supervision order in place over Vattenfall's Forsmark nuclear power plant since September 2006.

The supervision order was made after a safety-related incident in July 2006, when a switch connecting the plant to

Forsmark (Image: Hans Blomberg)

the national grid short circuited and backup generators failed to start up as they should have. Although there were no safety problems associated with the reactor as a result of the incident, it was assigned a rating of 2 on the seven-level International Nuclear Events Scale (INES), rather than the level 1 rating of an "anomaly", because of failure in the emergency power supply system.

Following the incident, SSM's predecessor, the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI), ruled that deficiencies in safety culture at the plants must be addressed and placed all three Forsmark units under special supervision with instruction to address identified shortcomings.

According to a 22 April press release, the broad range of measures undertaken by plant operator Forsmarks Kraftgrupp AB to address shortcomings mean that the SSM now considers the operator able to return to operating and developing safety systems under normal supervision.

In a company press release, Hans von Uthmann, senior executive vice president and head of business group at Vattenfall Nordic, said the company was doing everything possible to ensure it maintained high safety standards at all of its nuclear plants. These include a February 2008 inspection of the Forsmark plant by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a review by the independent World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) planned for 2011.

Forsmark was beset by further operational woes in the second half of 2008 when cracks were discovered in control rods at Forsmark 3, extending an annual maintenance outage while the issue was addressed.

The Forsmark plant comprises three boiling water reactors (BWRs), and has been operating since the 1980s.