The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has served an Improvement Notice on Sellafield Ltd following a number of electrical safety incidents across the site.
While we are satisfied that Sellafield Ltd is currently meeting the high standards expected with regards to nuclear safety, as a regulator we require sustained improvements in the area of electrical safety.
A number of electrical events at Sellafield have been subject of enquiries or investigation by ONR over recent months. In December, the company was fined £320,000 following an electrical event in April 2020 which resulted in a worker sustaining serious injuries.
None of the incidents had any impact on the public or the environment, and all were reported to ONR by Sellafield Ltd in line with requirements.
Dr Mina Golshan, ONR Deputy Chief Inspector, said: “The improvement notice will require Sellafield Ltd to make improvements to the training and supervision of staff carrying out electrical work across the whole site. We have identified these issues to be the root causes of the majority of recent events.
“The notice will also require that any lessons learned from these incidents are applied to all areas of the site where electrical work is carried out.
“As the independent safety regulator, we will hold Sellafield Ltd to account to ensure that progress and sustained improvements are made.”
Sellafield Ltd must comply with the notice by 15 January 2022.