ATENA Forum 2021

Activities of ATENA
February 18, 2021
Atomic Energy Association(ATENA)

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Role of ATENA in the nuclear industry

1[Mission]
ATENA addresses common technical issues related to nuclear safety, makes
decisions on introducing voluntary and effective safety measures while effectively
utilizing the knowledge and resources of the entire nuclear industry, andencourages utilities to implement these measures to actual site operations,
thereby raising the level of safety at nuclear power stations even higher.
[Role]JANSI: Japan Nuclear Safety Institute, JEMA: The Japan Electrical Manufacturers’ Association, NRRC: Nuclear Risk Research Center
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ATENA’s approach to common technical issues
ATENA is to address the following common issues based on lessons learned fromthe Fukushima Daiichi Accident and subsequent efforts for safety improvement
by utilities.

As of January 2021, ATENA identifies 19 issues as prioritized themes and is goingto review them in technical perspective.

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History of ATENA’s activities
FYActivities

Issues・Establishment of ATENA (July 2018)2018

・Prepare for starting
dialogues with NRA・Selected common technical issues as themes and started
review activities

・Steadily implement
technical reviews

・Established a framework for collaboration with relatedorganizations

2019

2020

・Started producing fruitful results in the review of technicalissues
Published a technical report on "Improvement Measures
Proposed by Assessing Trends in Emergency Diesel
Generator Malfunctions in Domestic Nuclear Power
Plants" and requested utilities to implement safetymeasures・Establish practices such as
conducting technicalreviews, developing safetymeasures, and requesting
utilities and manufacturers
to introduce
countermeasures.

・Started dialogues with NRA (April 2019)

・Conduct active dialogues
with NRA

・Continuously published technical reports and requested theimplementation of respective safety measures. Also,
continued to update priority themes and strived to realize
productive dialogues with NRA・Extract "potential risks" inaddition to current technicalissues・Proceeded without any problem in the middle of thecoronavirus pandemic by using telework and webconferencing

・Conduct productive
dialogues with NRA andreinforce communicationwith stakeholders

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List of common technical issues (themes) (as of January 2021)•ATENA selects the prioritized common issues expected to improve the safety at nuclear power
stations effectively, and addresses to issues raised by the regulatory authority as required.

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5Activities in FY 2020

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Published technical reports•ATENA compiles and publishes safety measures related to common technicalissues (themes) as technical reports.
FY 2019

Publication date

〇Improvement Measures Proposed by Assessing Trends in Emergency
Diesel Generator Malfunctions in Domestic Nuclear Power Plants○Guideline Regarding Performance Indicators (PI) Used in Nuclear
Regulatory Inspections○Voluntary Guide on Introducing Cybersecurity Measures at Nuclear
Power Plants

FY 2020(June 21, 2019)[Rev. 1, November 7, 2019](June 28, 2019)(March 12, 2020)
Publication date

○Guideline on the implementation of Licensee Inspections(July 31, 2020)○Maintenance Guideline for Long-term Plant Shutdown(September 25, 2020)○Guideline on Assessing Design Obsolescence(September 25, 2020)○Discontinued Product Management Guideline(September 25, 2020)○Design Guideline for the Base-Isolated Buildings Housing Severe
Accident Equipment〇Guideline for Deterrence and Adequate Response to Fraudulent Activity
by Manufacturer/Component Supplier○Technical Requirements for Mitigation Measures of Software Common
Cause Failures of Digital Safety Protection System(September 29, 2020)(October 28, 2020)(December 24, 2020)

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Progress on specific common technical issues (1/5)

7① Proactively utilize new knowledge and advanced technologies◎ Develop a new guideline for Cyber security•

Given the increasing threat of cyberattacks and the strengthened domestic andinternational guides, ATENA has created an industry guideline to request eachutility and manufacturer to strengthen their countermeasures.

<Results of activities>•

From September 2018 to June 2019, ATENA
surveyed the knowledge in the overseas nuclear
industries and drafted an industry guideline afterreflecting the comments from hearings with allutilities.

•From November 2019 to January 2020, ATENA held
dialogues with the NRA to confirm the consistency
with the NRA guideline.

•In March 2020, ATENA issued the industry guideline
and requested utilities to implement safetymeasures.

Utilities plan to complete security enhancement
measures in line with the guideline by FY 2022.
ATENA will confirm the implementation status ofutilities.

ATENA industry guideline

Reflect

Knowledge in overseas
IAEA Guideline, Information in the US（guideline formulatedby NRC, NEI, and general industry)

General image of Guideline for Cyber Security
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Progress on specific common technical issues (2/5)① Proactively utilize new knowledge and advanced technologies◎Develop a new guideline to adopt measures for common cause
failures (CCFs) in digital safety protection system•

As a measure against CCFs, utilities have voluntarily installed backup equipment.
Although the probability of CCFs is sufficiently low, further safety measures will beidentified and implemented based on discussions with the NRA.
Voluntary equipment (composed of analog
equipment in the case of loss of digital circuitfunctions)<Results of activities>•At the NRA meeting in October 2019, ATENA
explained the risk reduction effect of the existing
voluntary equipment to prepare for the risk of lossof functions of the digital safety protection system.

•In January 2020, ATENA decided to introduce
further safety measures to voluntary equipment so
as to ensure the prevention of core damage, basedon discussions in NRA meetings.

•In December 2020, ATENA published the technicalrequirement document to strengthen voluntary
equipment and requested utilities to implement
safety measures.

(Red characters: Additional safety measures (for PWR))
SensorEquipment strengthened (example)

Utilities have begun to implement the measures stipulated in the technical requirement
document and plan to introduce them from FY 2023.
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ATENA will periodically confirm the status of efforts by utilities.

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Proposed scheme to confirm the progress of software common cause
failure (CCF) measures of digital safety protection system•

ATENA regularly confirms the status of efforts by utilities at each stage of planningand implementation.

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Progress on specific common technical issues (3/5)

10③ Establish a framework which promotes voluntary efforts for safetyimprovement◎ Initiative of aging management for safe long-term operation•

Implement further measures by reviewing current efforts of aging management, withconsideration of the current situation of each plant's prolonged long-term shutdown
and ensuring safe long-term operation in the future.

<Results of activities>•ATENA held technical discussions with NRAfrom March to July 2020, at the NRA’s“Practical level technical opinion exchange
meetings with ATENA regarding agingmanagement.”•ATENA published three guidelines in
September 2020 for aging management(① Maintenance during long-term plant
shutdown, ② Assessing design obsolescence,and ③ Discontinued product management).

•

ATENA required utilities to implement safetymeasures related to these guidelines.

Proposed initiatives

Utilities are currently implementing necessary measures with establishing individual implementationplans according to these guidelines.
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All Rights
ATENA is involved in common technical reviews and regularly confirms Copyrightthe statusofAssociation
efforts
byReserved.
utilities.

Progress on specific common technical issues (4/5)

11③ Establish a framework which promotes voluntary efforts forsafety improvement◎Develop industry’s guide documents for specific procedure tofulfill the NRA’s inspection reform••

After a trial operation period of one and a half years, the new inspection systementered operation in April 2020.
ATENA has published necessary guides and, as the responsible organization for dialogues
with NRA, continuously presents opinions at the NRA's opinion exchange meetings.

<Results of activities>•••

Industry organizations are goingall-out in complying with the newinspection system.
ATENA participates in the NRA's
opinion exchange meetings andcontinuously discusses inspection
guides and system operations.
ATENA developed the following
guidelines:〇 Guideline Regarding Performance
Indicators (PI) Used in Nuclear Regulatory
Inspections (June 2019)○ Guidelines on Implementation of Licensee
Inspections (July 2020)

Collaboration structure in the industry

ATENA continuously works to appropriately implement the system andcontinues to present opinions to polish up the system for improving safety.

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Progress on specific common technical issues (5/5)

12④ Others◎Establishment of further improvement measures for Emergency
Diesel Generator (EDG) reliability by analyzing operating experience•Although the number of EDG failure events has not increased since 2011, the ratioof EDG failure events to the number of total events is relatively increasing, and theratio of events due to human factors is high. Therefore, ATENA investigated the past
events in detail and identified further improvement measures.

<Results of activities>•ATENA compiled a report on items to beimproved that are common to all utilities andrequested them to make the improvements
in June 2019.

•ATENA confirmed and evaluated theimprovement status of utilities in June 2020.

[Evaluation results]
Only one EDG event (human factor) for
all utilities occurred in FY 2019.
The EDG event frequency was 0.009
cases/unit-year, which was the lowest
since 2003.

ATENA continues to check the status of efforts by utilities and the EDG event
frequency and strives to ensure EDG reliability.
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Dialogues with the regulatory authority••

ATENA shall be responsible in handling of common regulatory issues.
ATENA shall engage in dialogues with the regulatory authority on behalf of thenuclear industry.

[Results of activities]• ATENA has actively engaged in dialogues with NRA through weekly administrativemeetings, NRA-CNO opinion exchange meetings and public meetings since April 2019.
• However, when engaging in dialogues on issues other than the themes that ATENA isworking on as common technical issues, in some cases, ATENA is not ready to present
its own thoughts and opinions and only delivers utilities’ voice. We think such kind ofcommunication is not productive and need to be improved.

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Areas for further improvement14

1. Industry initiatives for independent measuresStrongly recognizing ATENA's approach of "take the initiative with one step ahead" and"always re-question whether there is any room for improvement," ATENA should
continuously solve safety issues for the utilization of nuclear energy and lead thenuclear industry's activities by:・ Continuously extracting potential risks by collecting and analyzing new technologies
and knowledge, and・ Identifying industry’s voluntary measures for improving substantial safety andrequesting the implementation of such measures regardless of the individualinterests of utilities and manufacturers.
Further enhanced collaboration among the industry organizations is required toeffectively promote the entire process of “identifying potential risks,” “implementingnecessary measures,” and “ensuring the proper implementation.”

2. Further promotion of communication with the NRAATENA, as a representative of the industry, should proactively share common
understanding of issues with the regulatory authority, and openly discuss such as thedirection of safety improvement, safety significance of each issue, implementation
schedule, thereby ensure the enhanced safety of nuclear power.
In order to achieve it, ATENA should always focus on improving its technicalcapabilities and try to realize productive discussions with the regulatory authority.
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15Summary•

In this March, ten years have passed since the accident at theFukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

•The nuclear industry has been making every effort to improve nuclear
safety under a strong will that such an accident shall never happen
again.

•It is important to keep lessons learned by the accident in our mind
everlastingly and also make steady and enhanced efforts for safety
improvement.

•Again, ATENA’s mission is to continue to deliberate what should bedone in order to improve nuclear safety voluntarily and continuously,
and to exercise leadership in industry wide efforts to accomplish
industry’s objectives.

•ATENA shall fulfill its mission with kind advice and support from not
only nuclear industry entities but also other various stakeholders.

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Thank you for your attention

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