NRC Schedules Webinar to Discuss 2018 Safety Performance at Pennsylvania Nuclear Power Plants

No: I-19-012
May 21, 2019
Contact: Diane Screnci, 610-337-5330
Neil Sheehan, 610-337-5331
 

NRC Schedules Webinar to Discuss 2018 Safety Performance at Pennsylvania Nuclear Power Plants

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a public webinar on June 12 to discuss the agency’s annual assessment of safety performance at the nuclear power plants located in Pennsylvania. Beaver Valley 1 & 2, in Shippingport, are operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company; and Susquehanna 1 & 2, in Berwick, are operated by Talen Energy. Limerick 1 & 2, in Limerick, Peach Bottom 2 & 3, in Delta, and Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Middletown, are operated by Exelon Nuclear.

The purpose of the webinar is to provide information regarding the plants’ safety performance in 2018 and the NRC’s oversight activities at the facilities. The online meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Participants will be able to view slides prepared by NRC staff and ask questions either orally or in writing via a web page established to host the session. Advance online registration is required to participate.

All of the units operated safely in 2018. For Beaver Valley, Limerick, Three Mile Island and Susquehanna, at the end of the year, all inspection findings and performance indicators were green, or of very low safety significance. As a result, the plants will receive the normal level of oversight in 2019, which entails thousands of hours of inspection each year.

The NRC determined the performance at Peach Bottom was within the Regulatory Response Column, the second highest performance column of the NRC’s Reactor Oversight Process Action Matrix due to a white finding (low to moderate safety significance). The finding was related to performance issues that caused a shared emergency diesel generator to be declared inoperable last June. In addition to baseline inspections, the NRC is conducting a supplemental inspection to ensure that the root and contributing causes of degraded performance are understood and that appropriate corrective actions are taken.

The NRC Reactor Oversight Process uses color-coded inspection findings and indicators to describe plant performance. The colors start at green and increase to white, yellow or red, commensurate with the safety significance of the issues involved. Inspection findings or performance indicators with more than very low safety significance trigger increased NRC oversight.

Inspections are performed by two NRC resident inspectors assigned to each of the plants and specialists from the agency’s Region I Office in King of Prussia, Pa. The annual assessment letters

for Beaver Valley, Limerick, Peach Bottom, Susquehanna and Three Mile Island, as well as the webinar notice, are available on the NRC website. Current plant performance information for all of the units is also available on the website and updated quarterly.