WANO completes joint centre review of Rovno plant

The World Association of Nuclear Operators has submitted a report on its first ever cross-centre review, which took place at the Rovno nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Gaetan Le Corvec, head of operations at WANO's Paris Centre, said the review had revealed "no critical shortcomings" at the plant.

The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) has submitted a report on its first ever cross-centre review, which took place at the Rovno nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Gaetan Le Corvec, head of operations at WANO's Paris Centre, said the review had revealed "no critical shortcomings" at the plant.

The Rovno plant (Image: Energoatom)

Energoatom, Ukraine's state-run nuclear power plant operator, said in November the review by WANO's Moscow and Paris Centres was a very useful exercise. Yesterday, Energoatom announced it had received WANO's official report on the review, which was conducted by 28 specialists from ten countries.

In the Energoatom statement, Le Corvec thanked the company's president, Yury Nedashkovsky, and the plant's staff. "We found no critical shortcomings during the audit, while closing out problematic issues we have indicated in the report will be a route to the self-improvement of your company," Le Corvec said, without elaborating.

Nedaskovsky added: "I’m so pleased that WANO's first ever joint review was conducted at a Ukrainian plant. It has been very helpful for us to find out how we are seen through the eyes of European specialists. Initially it was quite a gamble because no one knew exactly what would come out of it, but the preliminary results have already shown that has been a very useful experience and we look forward to its further use as an effective tool to enhance plant safety."

The Energoatom president said he was confident the report would lead to improvements in the operation of the Rovno plant.

The plant takes the name of the city in northwestern Ukraine where it is located - Rivne in Ukrainian and Rovno in Russian.

The 2835 MWe Rovno plant consists of four Soviet-designed VVER units - units 1 and 2 are of the VVER-440 type and started operations in 1980 and 1981, respectively; units 3 and 4 are VVER-1000 reactors that have been in service since 1986 and 2004, according to Energoatom.

Rovno was the first Soviet-era plant to host an Operational Safety Review Team (OSART) mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency. At the request of the government of Ukraine at the time, an IAEA OSART team visited Rovno 3 and 4 in 2006.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News