Press Release

Report on the Targeted Safety Review complete

Paks Nuclear Power Plant Ltd submitted, to the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority (HAEA), its final report on the „Stress Test”. It can be concluded from the result of this review, which was ordered by HAEA upon the influence of the Fukushima event, that the resistance of Paks Nuclear Power Plant to presumable key events and external hazard factors is acceptable, thus no immediate action is required.  

Upon the request of the European Committee (EC), a Targeted Safety Review (TSR), i.e. a so-called Stress Test of the nuclear power plant was completed in Hungary too. The documentation used as basis for the TSR was received by Paks Nuclear Power Plant Ltd (PA ZRt) from HAEA on 2 May 2011. The progress report issued by PA ZRt was submitted to HAEA by the specified submission date of 15 August 2011. 

Safety enhancement measures will be specified for the nuclear power plant and a national report, to be submitted to the European Committee by 31 December 2011, will be prepared by HAEA on the basis of this final report submitted prior to the specified submission date of 31 October. 

The main conclusions of the final report prepared by the power plant include, among others, a statement that the nuclear power plant is adequately protected against seismic events, the floods of the Danube river do not involve risk to the plant site due to the higher ground level and the configuration of the power plant, and that with the use of appropriate engineering tools, the power plant is capable of managing extreme low river water levels. The studied extreme events of meteorological origin can not cause significant damage to the facility. The assessment also covered the potentially required emergency make-up of the lost power and cooling water supplies. It was concluded that the reserves available for cooling the reactor in case of loss of power and cooling water supplies were sufficient.         

It was stated on the basis of the review, that the results of the Targeted Safety Review did not require any immediate action at Paks Nuclear Power Plant. However, corrective actions were recommended by PA ZRt in its TSR report for improving the safety. These recommendations include the qualification and the potential reinforcement of non safety related buildings, which were not qualified for seismic resistance before, and the increase of the available reserves, and, for ensuring the more effective use of the available alternatives for the recovery, the modification of the operating instructions, and furthermore, the installation of higher capacity diesel generators and the provision of alternative cooling water supplies. Following the implementation of the corrective actions, the occurrence of long term loss of electric power supply and the loss of heat absorber will be almost impossible and the occurrence probability of severe accidents will decrease even further, below the presently applicable extremely low values.     

Paks, 3 November 2011

István Mittler
Communication Director