Holtec is pleased to announce the completion of the largest pool to pad loading campaign to date at PSEG’s Hope Creek Nuclear Plant. At a celebratory dinner on Thursday, September, 4, Holtec thanked the PSEG dry storage team lead by Mr. Scott Kelley, Manager of Outage Services, and Mr. Tom McLaughlin, Outage Superintendent, for their support which contributed to the success of this campaign. The following article internally distributed as a ‘Hope Creek FYI’ by PSEG provides an exceptional summary of the campaign.
The largest site Dry Cask Storage (DCS) campaign was completed at Hope Creek last week safe, ALARA and event free.
On Friday, August 29, the 10th and final cask was set at the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) pad completing the largest DCS campaign performed at PSEG Nuclear in a single year. Six hundred eighty spent fuel assemblies were loaded into the 10 dry casks and transported to the ISFSI pad for long term storage. This represents almost three full refuel outages of spent fuel assemblies allowing us to stay on plan for spent fuel pool capacity and spent fuel storage and disposal.
The 2014 campaign was completed with excellent safety, human performance and ALARA performance to date. There were no safety or significant HU events and dose performance tracked less than the projected stretch goal. Currently, PSEG is one of only four operational sites that have loaded 10 or more HOLTEC casks in a single year.
The success of the DCS campaign did not happen by accident and is in stark contrast to the 2013 DCS campaign where only two casks were loaded. After the 2013 campaign, Outage Services and HOLTEC sat down and critiqued what went wrong and what changes and improvements needed to occur to be successful in working safe and event free.
Through this process, key actions were developed with a focus on human performance, training and personnel development to drive performance to the appropriate level. In early 2014, the decision to complete 10 casks was made with action plans in place to track progress towards our goal.
The behaviors and lessons learned reinforce our Nuclear Safety Culture Trait Continuous Learning and the attribute Operating Experience: The organization systematically and effectively collects, evaluates and implements lessons from relevant internal and external operating experience information in a timely manner.
The success was the result of the hard work by many people in many organizations such as Reactor Services, HOLTEC, Operations, Reactor Engineering, Radiation Protection, Human Performance, Security, DZ NPS and the Yard department. Thorough planning, attention to detail and commitment to excellence were key aspects of completing this work safe and event free.
Thanks to all who contributed to this successful campaign.