VVER/01-B : Licensing Related Assessment

The objective was to assist GAN in technical evaluation of the proposed safety upgrading measures, including design and operational aspects, related to Novovoronezh units 3 and 4.
This project belongs to the series of TSO projects which were launched to support GAN to review, assess and approve the safety analysis and modernization initiatives (made in the TACIS 1991 industrial projects) - all this as per requests by the utility in accordance with the parallel developing Russian licensing approach and legislation.

The project suffered from late availability of the input documentation of the respective industrial projects for many reasons. Although delayed, the objectives were achieved as planned.

The result can be dived into the following tasks:

Task 1:
Safety Assessment of Confinement Systems was completed. The outcome of the industrial project was voluminous with direct influence on the amount of work. The results were positive and confirmed the conclusions of the Industrial project TACIS 1.10/93. No additional analytical calculation was deemed necessary.

Task 2:
Accident Identification and Analysis to collect information from various design institutes, because for Novovoronezh 3 and 4 units no Final Safety Analysis Report exists. The Industrial project TACIS 1.3/93 included a large volume of calculations for Kola NPP units 1 and 2. Therefore, an assessment had to be made on their relevance to Novovoronezh 3 and 4 units. The work resulted in recommendations as to the definition of design basis accident and beyond design basis accidents for these running units of the older design of V-230 units. The main result was the awareness what is necessary to increase the safety basis of Novovoronezh Unit 3 & 4.

Task 3:
Development of the Recommendations for the Accident Analysis included a review of the process to perform accident analysis. The Spanish reference was found very useful and is now partly in use at GAN. The Task was not completed in full due to lack of joint discussions. The reference regarding the safety standards and requirements for the old units is of adequate value. Task 3 was not as global as Tasks 1 and 2, but was well appreciated by the Beneficiary.