Safety
Safe use of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant is based on competent and responsible personnel, high-quality plant technology, principle of continuous improvement and independent internal and external supervision. TVO’s activity-based management system meets the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard. In order to ensure safe operation, TVO systematically estimates the level of safety and safety culture, and the entire TVO personnel is committed to observing a high-quality safety culture.
TVO regularly assesses the state of its overall safety from the viewpoints of production, nuclear safety, safety and service life management as well as management, organization and personnel. The overall level of safety is good.
The state of the safety culture is regularly assessed according to the IAEA procedure. TVO’s safety culture is estimated to be at a level at which the strategic importance of safety has been recognized and preventative practices are observed. TVO aims at reaching the highest possible level of safety culture. TVO has continued to employ various measures to maintain and develop the Company’s safety culture.
The Company regularly assesses the operations of its plant units with the help of internationally used safety indicators. Of the safety indicators, collective radiation dose, unplanned energy unavailability factor and unplanned automatic scrams realization are described in Table “Objectives and results of TVO’s responsibility principle” (Chapter 16) Responsibility).
The Olkiluoto nuclear power plant units, OL1 and OL2, operated safely throughout the year. TVO classifies events affecting nuclear safety in accordance with the international INES scale (0–7). In 2018, the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant had nine INES classified issues, of which eight incidents classified as level 0 (No safety significance) and 1 (Anomaly, exceptional incident with safety effects). In case of special situations and operational disruptions, the Company submits separate, incident-specific reports to the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority of Finland (STUK) with plan of corrective measures. TVO publishes information on every significant event with public interest on the company website in the News section.
Occupational safety
TVO has developed a certified occupational health and safety system, which also includes construction operations at the OL3 EPR site in the areas where TVO is responsible, to meet the requirements of the OHSAS 18001 standard. In 2018 TVO commenced a project to renew its occupational and safety system to meet the requirements of the ISO 45001 standard. The projects objective is also to unify TVO’s and Posiva’s occupational safety systems.
The group-level goal of occupational safety in 2018 was to enhance correct use of personal safety equipment in Olkiluoto, to support safety oriented working in the manager level and to develop risk review and management. The accident frequency in 2018 in Olkiluoto was 3.6 (accidents per million work hours), which did not meet the Company’s goal of less than 3.2 accidents per million work hour. TVO personnel, Posiva personnel and all contractors working in Olkiluoto are included in the accident frequency calculation, excluding OL3 site, which is reported by Plant Supplier Consortium AREVA-Siemens.
Key occupational safety figures for 2018 are reported in further detail in the corporate responsibility and environmental reporting on the TVO website at http://vuosikertomus.tvo.fi/annualreport2018.
