Benchmarking of the Armenian NPP Specialists at the Rivne NPP

07.06.2019

Benchmarking of the Armenian NPP Specialists at the Rivne NPP

On 13-17 May, 2019 a WANO MC benchmarking was conducted at the Rivne NPP (RNPP) on the theme of «Organization of the radiation protection and radioactive waste (RW) management conditions» with a view to exchange experience, ideas and practices related to radiation protection and radwaste management.

The following ANPP specialists participated in the benchmarking: Vovik Atoyan, the Deputy Chief Engineer on Safety, as a team leader, Misak Kirakosyan, the Head of Radiation Protection Department, Mher Melikyan, the Shift Supervisor of Radiation Protection Department, and Sergey Kenjetsyan, the WANO MC Representative on the ANPP site, as a coordinator.

The host plant representatives were specialists of Radiation Protection Department (RSD) and Decontamination and Radioactive Waste Department of the Rivne NPP. They presented their experience in working with «Radmon» database and «ASCom» change management system, told about improvement of the dosimetric access procedures and enhancement of efficiency of using the working time during outage periods, about aspects of radiation monitoring, shared experience in implementing activities aimed at minimization of personnel dose loads and radiation monitoring of the environment.

During the visit the units controlled area, radiation monitoring panels, central post of the automated system of radiation situation monitoring, radwaste treatment facilitiy, as well as the RNPP modern information centre «Polesye» were visited.  The Armenian specialists also became familiar with organization of physical barriers of the increased radiation protection areas, procedures on identification of «hot points», criteria of their registration, accounting, fencing, labelling, shielding and behaviour, process of monitoring and non-spread of radioactive contamination, programs and methods of radioactive contamination monitoring, use of respiratory organs personal protection equipment and additional personal protection equipment, radioactive waste management, methodology and performance of the ALARA bodies and their efficiency.

At the final meeting chaired by Pavel Kovtonyuk, Chief Engineer, First Deputy General Director of the RNPP, the representatives of the Armenian NPP thanked the Rivne nuclear specialists for the warm welcome and for an excellent organization of the WANO MC event.

 «We have completely implemented the scheduled agenda of the visit. The first thing we noted is the commitment of the Rivne NPP management to safety issues, including radiation safety. We got evidence that a huge scope of work related to radiation protection was performed at the enterprise – we haven’t seen temporary solutions here, everything is thoroughly considered and wisely implemented. We would like to emphasize the openness of the plant staff. Your experience is really exemplary for us. This visit was very instructive - we have already identified a number of activities, based on Rivne NPP practices, which we would like to implement at our plant.  I am sure we’ll continue our cooperation in future as well. I think this benchmarking was a success», - summed up Vovik Atoyan, the team leader.