Executive summary
Date(s) of inspection: October 2024
Aim of inspection
This was a planned inspection on maintenance standards undertaken in support of ONR's permissioning strategy for refuelling outage 19 (RO19) at Sizewell B (SZB).
The inspection targeted outage maintenance activities that were being carried out on site and focussed on compliance with Licence Condition (LC) 28 'Examination, inspection, maintenance and testing (EIMT)' and LC 26 'Control and supervision of operations'.
The inspection was carried out by the SZB nominated site inspector and the RO19 project inspector. The intervention was performed in line with ONR’s guidance requirements (as described in our technical inspection guides, which can be found at www.onr.org.uk/operational/tech_insp_guides/index.htm).
Subject(s) of inspection
- LC26 - Control and supervision of operations - Rating: Green
- LC28 - Examination, inspection, maintenance and testing - Rating: Green
Key findings, inspector's opinions and reasons for judgement made
This inspection targeted maintenance work that was ongoing for RO19. The inspection sampled maintenance activities being carried out by EDF NGL employees and it's contract partners.
The inspection sampled and observed aspects including:
- Start of shift and pre-job briefings
- Work pack documentation (including work order cards, maintenance instructions and safety documents)
- Workplace standards
- Test Equipment
- Field supervision
- Quality standards
We were content with the briefings and setting to work process witnessed. Adequate consideration was given to the nuclear safety status of the plant and risks to both plant and persons from the work to be undertaken. EDF NGL used a containment streetview during the pre-job briefs which we considered to be a good tool for familiarising teams with work locations.
The work packs sampled had the correct documentation present, clear instructions with procedural use and adherence (PU&A) evident. Where the task had been identified as an enhanced quality task the documentation was correctly completed and we considered the identification of these tasks to be a positive fleet learning initiative. We also saw evidence of checking of WOC's for proper completion prior to sign off by the supervisor.
We were content with the workplace standards observed and the test equipment sampled was found to be within calibration.
During the inspection we observed a contract crane driver accessing a mobile crane cab without any fall protection mitigations in place. EDF NGL agreed to review this observed practice against industry standards for what appeared to be a modern vehicle.
Conclusion
Based on the discussions and evidence sampled, we considered that the licensee has adequately implemented its arrangements for compliance with LC26 and LC28. We therefore judged that an inspection rating of GREEN (no formal action) is merited for compliance against these licence conditions. There are no return to service issues from this inspection.