Paks II: safety first and foremost

One of the driving forces behind occupational safety and health, and the HSE discipline that encompasses it, is the protection of human life and health above all else. In the Paks II Nuclear Power Plant Zrt. Regulations, the personal, material and organisational conditions for safe and healthy working conditions are laid down in order to protect the life, health and physical integrity of employees and to meet the requirements of safe and healthy working conditions. The Code applies not only to the company's employees but also to everyone who works on the site. In accordance with the regulations, all employees must receive preliminary safety training when they start work and periodic training every year thereafter, due to the constantly changing nature of project activities.

The Programme HSE Department of the Programme Directorate is responsible for the provision of HSE tasks related to the operation of the company and the construction of the new nuclear power plant units and the investment area. The staff of the department are constantly on site, monitoring the activities taking place there and, if necessary, intervening, assisting and even stopping work until the conditions for safe working are met. The "everyone goes home" principle applies - when HSE professionals investigate or raise concerns, the aim is not to seek responsibility, but to prevent potential accidents. If a process has such consequences, they investigate and process them so that a similar situation can be avoided.

Not only the company's own employees, but also the subcontractors on the project are subject to the same strict requirements in terms of health and safety, so all new contractors are given written instructions on construction safety and must attend a pre-start meeting to be briefed on basic health and safety, fire and environmental rules. Paks II. Zrt., together with the main contractor, will do its utmost to ensure that these requirements are met. This is compounded during the construction of a nuclear power plant by the fact that it is an international project, which means that the work of people of different nationalities and cultures has to be coordinated and brought up to the expected level from an HSE point of view. The secret, as with our own employees, is education, training and ongoing information to ensure that the knowledge gained can be applied in an unexpected situation. Another key is planning, as improvisation is a potential hazard.

There are many situations where not only is it planned exactly who is where when and exactly what the task is, but also special OSH training is given because of the specific, unique nature of the activity. A recent example of this was the arrival of the first major piece of equipment for the project, the zone melt trap. A meeting was held with the main contractor during the delivery to clarify when and how it would arrive, how it would be received and who would be responsible for what in terms of occupational safety. The schedule was used to summarise the tasks and the occupational safety requirements.

Every person working or staying on site was required to attend a task and site-specific OHS training course, and a daily induction meeting was held where this was a key topic. The safety equipment, which weighed more than 730 tonnes in total, was delivered by water to the cold water canal of the Paks nuclear power plant. The areas were carefully delimited, given that a heavy load was being lifted, and all this on a construction site. The heavy elements were craned off the cargo ship following the lifting plan and transported to the storage site without disruption or accident, in an industry-wide cooperation. Specialists from the Paks II. Zrt., the main contractor ASE, the MVM Paksi Atomerőmű Zrt., the MVM Ovit Zrt. and the Austrian Danube Shipping Management Service GmbH worked together on this challenging task.

Just like the removal of large equipment and the movement and transport of large, heavy items, night work also requires special attention from a health and safety point of view. In the area of the new nuclear power plant units, soil stabilisation machines and their operators and service staff also work at night. As work is normally carried out during the day, the human body adapts to it, and at night its attention is reduced, night work involves many more risks and requires more organisation and attention on the part of both the employer and the worker.

HSE activity is effective if senior management is behind it, if it is accepted that people come first, if HSE sometimes slows down or even stops processes. The management of the Paks II project shares the view that this is much less of a problem than an unexpected incident that causes an accident, health damage and, once in the news, a reputational damage to the company and the industry.