Volume 76, Issue 6

Due to high safety standards at nuclear power plants, no experience exits with nuclear emergencies in Western Europe. Thus, emergency exercises are the only possibility to assure effective protective measures should the very unlikely severe accident occur. The main objectives of exercises are generally the check of response plans for suitability, the test of the equipment's applicability and training of personnel for the unusual task to manage a nuclear emergency. After an introduction into the different types of exercises, this contribution focuses on off-site nuclear emergency exercises, explaining frame conditions to ensure good practice and, finally, reports some experience from exercises.

The National NBC Protection and Coordination Office supports the activities of all members of the National NBC protection network. These include the development and implementation of operational principles, as well as training and pro-tection concepts on behalf of the head of the Steering Committee on Radioactivity (LAR) and the Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP), the chair of the Federal Commission for NBC Protection (ComNBC) and the chair of the Cantonal NBC Coordination Platform (KPABC). Besides exercises at the political-strategic level (civilian and military), operational training exercises are held on a regular basis.

The importance of training of safety personnel to deal with real world scenarios is prevalent amongst nuclear emergency preparedness and response organizations. For the development of training tools we have committed to ensure that field procedures, data collection software and decision making tools be identical during training sessions as they would be during a real emergency. By identifying the importance of a fully integrated tool, we have developed a safety support system capable of both functioning in training mode and real mode, enabling emergency response organizations to train more efficiently and effectively. This new fully integrated emergency management tool is called S3-FAST also known as Safety Support Systems – Field Assessment Survey Tool.

In order to respond to a nuclear emergency case the first few hours are of decisive significance. For that reason sufficient and well-trained staff must be available at any time. The training of the personnel of the Nuclear power plant Brokdorf (KBR) involved in the emergency management organisation will be described in this presentation.

Setup and operation of emergency care centres (sometimes also addressed as emergency reception centres) are part of emergency response in the environs of nuclear power plants. The preparation of an exercise scenario for such a centre is very demanding on the responsible agency. Therefore, a computer code has been developed which helps to translate the exercise objectives into instructions for figurants which simulate the affected population. These instructions are intended to steer a determined flow of people through the emergency care centre by providing fictitious radiological readings and by injecting the demand for additional actions of response personnel by statements and questions.

We inspect regularly the measures taken in terms of the plants operator emergency management organisation in supposed emergency situations and assess their effectiveness on behalf of the supervisory authorities under the atomic energy law. To this end corresponding exercises based on scenarios that have been prepared by ESN are carried out in the plants and followed by a group of independent observers. The course and effectiveness of measures initiated are assessed in the form of an expert's report. ESN prepared, managed, observed und evaluated more than 75 emergency exercises in nuclear power plants in the last twenty years. With this experience and particularly with the experience feedback between plants we contributed to the development of the internal emergency management for nuclear power plants in Germany. This paper at hand summarizes some of our experience.

During the last years the introduction of an electronic situation report system in nuclear power plants has been intensively discussed in the working group emergency staff coordinators of the VGB (‘Verband der Großkraftwerksbetreiber’). In parallel, many federal state authorities as well as the German Ministry of the Environment already successfully started to operate such a system. Based on a solution developed for the ministry for environment Baden-Württemberg, the specific requirements are adapted and extended for the operation in a nuclear power plant. The most important features are easy handling, open interfaces to the systems of the authorities, and flexibility for functional extensions. The advantages recognized after the first test stages led the nuclear power plants Biblis and Neckarwestheim to the decision to introduce such a system at the plant site. First progress and experience gained are reported from the perspective of the crisis management group of the power plant.

Based on federal acts and a specific guideline of the nuclear authority ENSI, strict requirements are imposed on emergency exercises at Swiss NPPs. The Beznau NPP has conducted emergency exercises for more than 30 years. Systematic exercise planning assures that all emergency cases defined in the plant-specific emergency plan are considered in the exercise scenarios. Technically oriented scenarios cover all groups of initiating events and all safety levels of the defense in depth principle. The exercise results are an important input for optimization measures in the areas of emergency organization, documentation and infrastructure. Due to the goal-oriented enforcement of laws and guidelines by the nuclear authority ENSI, emergency exercises serve as a motor of further optimization of emergency preparedness.

According to the Precautionary Radiation Protection Act, responsibility for crisis management in the case of events which do not pose an imminent danger lies with the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU). To fulfil this obligation, technical as well as organisational arrangements are required, and the BMU staff has to be made familiar with the relevant tasks. To accomplish this, suitable exercises are essential. In recent years exercise series have been initiated by international organisations and by the EU, which deal with practical experience in managing urgent radiological information exchange and crisis management according to international agreements. They cover both the early phase of nuclear accidents and the specific requirements of the late phase.

Off-site nuclear emergency preparedness has to deal with extensive scenarios. In consequence, radiologial assessment in such cases has to follow a transboundary approach. The joint evaluation and assessment of the radiological situation and the decision on emergency countermeasures after a nuclear accident in the NPP Biblis as required in the Basic Recommendations for Civil Protection was trained in a concerted excercise by Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz und Baden-Württemberg in autumn 2008.

At the end of the eighties the TÜV NORD established an expert consultation service for radiation protection in case of nuclear accidents. Since that time, educated and regularly trained surveyors also take part as expert advisors in out of plant emergency exercises for radiation protection in the federal countries Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Their responsibility is to assist and to advise the emergency response commander regarding both the predicted and the current radiological situation. Furthermore, the technical expert adviser for radiation protection communicates with other expert advisers (agent of the operator, medical staff, and meteorologists) as well as with measuring and emergency services. The experience gained during emergency exercises is summarized and documented. In the course of the past twenty years the implementation of central structures, the software systems for determination of the radiological impact and the change of communication systems have especially proved to be successful. For the future it can be assumed that exercises covering several days will be performed more often, so that not only the accident process is simulated correctly but also the conditions for the personnel of each disaster prevention unit can be simulated more realistically.

For the evaluation of a situation including radiological hazards a wide variety of measuring devices and methods are available. By selecting the approach we have to decide whether the results give us a reliable evaluation of the radiological hazards the results are promptly achievable qualified staff is available. Hereby the dose burden of the response personnel and a forecast about the risks for the population and the environment have to be considered. In the training of the response personnel these aspects must be included.

Although there is no nuclear industry in Austria, there are still many possible scenarios which require proper preparation through exercises. The legislative basis for the interventions of the police are the radiation protection law and the upon based interventions regulation, furthermore the penal law and the law on the transport of dangerous goods. The fire brigade has federal fire fighting laws and internal regulations as a regulatory basis. Exercises of first responder organisations take place once a year at least; the scenarios reflect the actions intended by the regulations. Aeroradiometry is a special technique conducted by the police, while the fire brigade may bring heavy equipment to use. Further improvement of the cooperation of different first responder organisations is a major goal of combined exercises.

In order to cope with accidents beyond the design basis within German nuclear power plants which possibly lead to relevant radiological consequences, the utilities as well as the competent authorities exist emergency organisations. The efficiency, capacity for teamwork and preparedness of such organisations should be tested by regular, efficient exercise activities. Such activities can suitably be based on scenarios which provide challenging tasks for all units of the respective emergency organisation. Thus, the demonstration and further development of the efficiency of the respective organisational structures, including their ability to collaborate, is promoted.

Like all nuclear power plants in Switzerland, the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen (PSI), Switzerland, has the duty to conduct an emergency exercise every year. The two monitoring authorities ENSI (Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate) and the BAG (Federal Office of Public Health – FOPH) use this exercise for their yearly audit of the emergency organization. The emergency organization of the Paul Scherrer Institute consists of the emergency staff, the fire brigade, the first aid station, the traffic- and the security platoon and the radiation safety, the latter consisting of the decontamination group, the radio analytics group and the measurement group (for radioactivity dispersion calculations). The framework is set up by the ENSI beforehand, based on a fixed cycle. For the emergency exercise of 2009 a plane crashing into the interim storage facility of the federal government (BZL) at PSI was assumed. This contribution describes the approach of the planning process, the performance and the evaluation of the exercise.