Preparing Hanhikivi nuclear power plant for start-up

Kim Stålhandske, Operational Readiness Manager at Fennovoima talks exclusively to Inside WANO.

As part of our preparations for safe and reliable start-up, Fennovoima has been taking part in WANO technical working groups, workshops, seminars, conferences and benchmarking visits. A Category 5 member affiliated to London Office, Fennovoima has benefited from benchmarking against new units worldwide and obtaining expertise from all WANO’s Regional Centres. We are also taking advantage of the WANO database to utilise member support guidelines and good practices. It is also valuable for us to get information about events that took place at the construction phase of different NPPs to learn from those lessons.
 

Last year our experts visited Nawah's Barakah Nuclear Power Plant with WANO. The discussions both with Nawah and TVO, being positive and fruitful, were a great example of how the nuclear industry embraces the principles of openness and transparency. We all benefit from this because it improves safety and reduce risks for all organisations. We identified important information during this visit, both in the topics covered and the number of recommendations which could be applicable to Fennovoima.
 

Fennovoima also observed WANO pre-startup review of Barakah unit 1 to help us benchmark Fennovoima’s operation phase preparations. Another example of benchmarking was our WANO Member Support Mission to Three Mile Island NPP in the United States to benchmark ‘Systematic Approach to Training’. We also have had WANO Member Support Missions related to operating experience, training, safety culture and Significant Operating Experience Reports (SOERs) here in Finland.
 

We have found co-operation with WANO beneficial for our current phase of the project to prepare for the future operation phase of Hanhikivi 1 NPP. It has been easy and effective to get support from WANO when we need it.
 

Kim Stålhandske
Operational Readiness Manager at Fennovoima