Belarus gets observer status in WWER Regulators’ Forum

Belarus was granted the observer status in the Forum of the State Nuclear Safety Authorities of the Countries Operating WWER Type Reactors, BelTA learned from the communications and public information office of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor).

Belarus was granted the observer status at the 22nd session of the WWER Regulators’ Forum which was held in Yerevan on 2-4 September. The Belarusian delegation was led by head of Gosatomnadzor Olga Lugovskaya.

The delegations presented the reports on the implementation of the 2014 work plans and prospects of interaction. "The representatives of the participating states shared the operational experience and made reports on the developments at the NPPs and their analysis," said Gosatomnadzor specialists.

The Forum of the State Nuclear Safety Authorities of the Countries Operating WWER Type Reactors was established in 1993. The current members of the Forum are Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Finland, Ukraine, India, Iran and China. The observers are Germany, the IAEA and Belarus as of 2 September.

The objective of the forum is to help enhance the nuclear safety and radiation protection in the countries concerned through the utilization of the collective experience, information exchange and consolidation of efforts of the national nuclear safety authorities to study safety problems and improve regulatory policies and practices.

The forum has three working groups: strengthening the commissioning program of new WWER NPPs; reactor physics code verification with commissioning data; and the use of Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) methods. Gosatomnadzor will delegate its representatives to all the working groups. "However, given the current phase of development of the Belarusian nuclear program, Belarus is interested most of all in the working party on the strengthening of the commissioning program of new WWER NPPs,” specialists said.

The WWER Forum meetings are held once a year in the territory of the country holding the chairmanship. The next meeting will be held in Russia in 2016.