Junk Plant Salem: Terrible Equipment Over Last Two Years

September 22, 2016

 SUBJECT: SALEM NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2 –INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000272/2016002 AND 05000311/2016002

 

Equipment Reliability (Steady)

The inspectors documented an adverse trend in either equipment reliability or unplanned entries into TS shutdown limiting conditions for operation (LCO) in each of the previous four semi-annual trend review periods (IRs 05000272; 311/2014003, 2014005, 2015002 and 2015004). In February 2016, in response to PSEG’s unplanned LCO performance goal not being met, PSEG performed Common Cause Evaluation (CCE) 70184208, Unplanned Shutdown LCO Goal Not Met. The CCE was completed in April of 2016, with the following results:

A trend of data over an 18-month period from August 2014 through January 2016 identified 68 unplanned shutdown LCOs, which far exceeded the station goal of no more than 8 in a 12-month rolling average. PSEG’s CCE concluded:

1) 15 LCO entries were attributed to faulty parts; 2) 10 entries were attributed to equipment not being repaired in a timely manner; and 3) more follow up evaluations were warranted.

o Work Group Evaluation (WGE) 70185245, “Follow up Evaluation from Unplanned shutdown LCOs,” was performed to further evaluate the 10 entries attributed to equipment not being repaired in a timely manner. PSEG attributed the cause to ineffective development and implementation of equipment reliability strategies to ensure reliability until long-term elimination or mitigating actions were in place. Actions were assigned to develop bridging strategies for Plant Health Committee items and rollout to Station Oversight Committee (SOC) and Management Review Committee (MRC) an expectation that if an unplanned LCO occurs, a causal evaluation should be performed.

The inspectors noted some improvement in the area of unplanned entries into TS LCOs in recent months; specifically, 44 unplanned shutdown LCOs occurred from June 2015 to April 2016, but only seven occurred in the last 3 months of this 10 month period. The inspectors determined that the adverse trend of equipment failures did not constitute a performance deficiency, because the trend, by itself, did not constitute a violation of any NRC requirement. The inspectors inspected individual equipment failures as ROP baseline inspection samples documented in other sections of this report.