“Safety is clearly a paramount priority”

Could you briefly present your career path ?

Laurent STRICKER – I was hired as engineer to start up the Bugey Pressurized Water Reactor (close to Lyon, France). Afterwards my carrier has been oriented to management tasks (head of operation department, responsible of maintenance of the first outages). After having headed the Bugey Training Center, the biggest in the world, I was in charge of Saint Laurent Nuclear Power Plant as Director. I integrated the staff of the corporate level of EDF at different positions including head of the Radioprotection and Environment Department and deputy Director of the DPN (Nuclear production Department) and then as Director during around 6 years.

In 2007 the CEO of EdF asked me to be senior advisor to the Chairman and CEO for nuclear issues. Finally, since last year, I was honoured to be elected as the Chairman of WANO.

What are the roles of WANO in the Nuclear Industry? 

LS – The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) is an organisation created to improve safety at every nuclear power plant in the world. « The mission of WANO is to maximise the safety and reliability of nuclear power plants worldwide by working together to assess, benchmark and improve performance through mutual support, exchange of information, and emulation of best practices. »

After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, nuclear operators world-wide realised that the consequences had an effect on every nuclear power plant and international cooperation was needed to ensure that such an accident can never happen again.

WANO was formed in May 1989 by nuclear operators world-wide uniting to exchange operating experience in a culture of openness, so members can work together to achieve the highest possible standards of nuclear safety.

The culture of openness allows each operator to benefit and learn from others experiences, challenges and best practice, with the ultimate goal of improving nuclear plant safety, reliability and performance levels for the benefit of their members throughout the world.

As every organisation in the world that operates a nuclear electricity generating plant is a member of WANO, it is a truly international organisation, cutting across political barriers and interests. WANO is an association set up purely to help its members achieve the highest practicable levels of operational safety, by giving them access to the wealth of operating experience from the world-wide nuclear community. WANO is non profit making and has no commercial ties. It is not a regulatory body and has no direct association with governments. WANO has no interests other than nuclear safety.

The corner stones of WANO are:

Peer Review (all the Nuclear Sites hosted at least one peer review) about 20 peers for 3 weeks producing a confidential report with strengths and areas of improvements. WANO organizes around 30 to 40 such reviews a year.

Operating experience: more than 1000 events are reported and analysed every year. The most serious ones are subject to reports, Significant Event Reports (SER) or Significant Operating Experience Reports (SOER) sent to the members.

Technical Support Mission (from 2 days to a week) to solve difficulties at the request of a member (about 200 per year.

WANO produces also guidelines and good practices and organizes seminars and workshops (about 80 per year). The most famous reports are the so-called SOERs.

What is your role in WANO?

LS – I’m the chairman of the board, dealing with the different issues and the different stakeholders about nuclear safety. I’ve also the opportunity to present WANO’s mission and services at several international conferences.

What kind of participation does EDF have in WANO? 

LS – EDF group is involved in WANO. Not only through the chairman and the governors (note that Henri Proglio is member of WANO Governing Board) but also with the use of WANO’s services: Peer Reviews including a Corporate Peer Review and a follow up few years ago, Technical Support Missions, Workshops. EDF provides also peers, experts for the TSM and secondees to WANO Paris Centre. Globally, EDF France provides 1/3 of the resources (Fees, Secondees, Peers and Experts) of WANO Paris Centre but with different levels of participations depending on the NPPs of the Group.

Now the question is how EDF will manage the leading position it has as the first nuclear operator worldwide.

According to you what are the big challenges for Nuclear Industry for the coming years?

LS – Safety is clearly a paramount priority. The nuclear Industry faces two main challenges: operate safely the existing NPP fleets for a long period of time (50, 60 years or more) and commission, start and operate new builds, including newcomers in this industry without any nuclear experience or skills.

How do you manage to convince them to share this experience with WANO, even for big operators such as EDF?

LS – Operating Experience is indeed very important. WANO must continue to push for a better transparency. Many incidents around the world could have been avoided by taking into account the operation feed back from other countries. This is true everywhere, including EDF.

It’s one of the roles of the chairman, the president and the Managing Director to visit the CEOs of Electric Companies, in particular the new ones to explain them that they have a double responsibility: an individual responsibility to operate their own fleet safely, and a collective responsibility to help all the operators operate their fleets safely.

WANO organizes since 2009 small CEOs meetings (3 a year) with 15 to 20 attendees to permit frank and candid discussions about these important issues and to get the wish of the CEOs for WANO efficiency.