NRC to Host Webinar on Pennsylvania Plants' 2018 Performance
The purpose of the webinar is to provide information on the plants' safety performance in 2018 and NRC's oversight activities at the facilities.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will present 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; Susquehanna 1 & 2 in Berwick are operated by Talen Energy; and 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 on the plants' safety performance in 2018 and NRC's oversight activities at the facilities. The online event 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.
NRC reported that 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. But the agency determined the performance at Peach Bottom was within the Regulatory Response Column, the second-highest performance column of NRC's Reactor Oversight Process Action Matrix, due to a white finding (low to moderate safety significance) that was related to performance issues that caused a shared emergency diesel generator to be declared inoperable last June.
In addition to baseline inspections, 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 at Peach Bottom.
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.