On a mission to gain WANO experience

​As suggested by their name these Missions, which take place at the invitation of the power company concerned, are carried out by groups of experts set up by WANO to provide technical assistance on issues specified by the company. The Mission in China concerned the Fangchenggang nuclear power plant where two CPR1000 units are currently under construction. The French TSM was conducted at the Civaux plant.

Operator actions and digital control centre management


WANO offered to the Fangchenggang plant the services of three experts, two of them from TVO. In addition to Jarno, also TVO's Petri Koistinen, who is working on assignment to WANO, took part in the Mission conducted in June.

Jarno gave the personnel of the plant four presentations, which dealt with operator actions and alarm management in a digital control centre, electronic operator instructions at a nuclear power plant, differences between digital and analogue control centres in terms of simulator training, as well as work permit practices.

- Each lecture was followed by a Q&A session during which the experts answered questions from the audience consisting of dozens of plant staff members and finally took part in a panel discussion. The end result of the TSM which took a little more than a week was the TSM report that we drew up for the plant, Jarno Lalli explains.

Reactivity management

The WANO Group gathered for the TSM in France comprised five experts, who conducted the Mission by means of personnel interviews. – We spent four long days in March interviewing control centre operators as well as staff from the various supporting activities of electricity production. We investigated the management of reactivity and procedures in various situations. For example, if some mistake is made in the control centre, where will information about it be recorded and how will it influence the training of the operators, Kim Dahlbacka describes the Mission.

- The results of the interviews were recorded in a report and the conclusions were first presented to the Management of the Civaux plant. Their clarifications were taken into account in the final presentation given to the plant personnel, Kim Dahlbacka continues.

Both plant customers were satisfied with the teams of experts set up by WANO and with the outcome of the Missions. Jarno and Kim also completed their TSM tasks with excellent results. This was the first TSM Mission for Jarno and Kim, but both would be willing to repeat the experience, if asked. – Participation in TSM developed our own professional skills. In practice, we did nothing but work and sleep, because our working day continued every night at the hotel drawing up a summary of the day's work and the final report.

On 20 August, TVO's Senior Vice President responsible for Production, Mr. Mikko Kosonen (left) presented WANO's certificates to Jarno Lalli and Kim Dahlbacka (right) for their contribution to the two TSMs.