A group of US experts analyze Rosenergoatom activities

11.12.2006 // Press-servise of the Rosenergoatom

The closing conference of the Partner Inspection “International Consultative Analysis ” of Rosenergoatom, the biggest generating company in Russia, was held in Moscow on Dec 8, 2006. The inspection was held by US experts on the initiative of Rosenergoatom

The expert group was led by Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer of Dominion Energy Dave Christian and comprised Senior Vice President for Generation and Chief Nuclear Officer of South Caroline Gas & Electric Steve Burney, former President and Chairman of INPO and former President of Virginia Power Jim Rhodes and former Senior Vice President for Generation and Chief Nuclear Officer of Pacific Gas & Electric Greg Rueger.

“The past inspection was not an ordinary partner inspection. It was a foreign consulting on a specific technical task,” Director General of Rosenergoatom Sergey Obozov said. “We asked our US colleagues to use their expertise and to analyze three specific subjects: first, our program for raising power generation, second, our management and personnel motivation and, third, our management efficiency and personnel capacity.”

Obozov said that the US experts had approved of the concern’s efforts to raise its output as logical and similar to the policies applied by the US NPPs when solving similar problems several years ago. Special attention was given to the reduction of preventive repair and refueling period and safety problems.  

“Our colleagues gave one example: when in their hunt for low cost value they were forced to stop three reactors. They termed this practice as “suicide spiral”: the rate of investment in NPP became so low that it began posing threat to security,” Obozov said, noting that in the opinion of the US experts there is no such problem in Russia.
 
The US experts presented a whole program of how to encourage personnel both morally and materially. They pointed to a big difference in bonus policies in Russia and the US: in the US personnel get bonuses according to their efficiency and not 100% of them but just 50%-60%. The experts also offered specific personnel and duty rotation mechanisms.

They noted that US companies are much more centralized especially in the system of material supply. The number of permanent NPP employees in the US is much bigger than in Russia.

The optimal personnel/MW ratio at Russian NPP-2006 should be 0.7:1, i.e. NPP generating 1 MW should employ 700 people. The US experts noted that one should be very careful in curtailing NPP personnel and this requires relevant changes in all processes and functions.

In conclusion, Obozov noted that the recommendations of the US experts will be used for further improvement of the Rosenergoatom management system, to be completed in the autumn 2007, by the time the concern will be registered as JSC.