OREANDA-NEWS. Balakovo nuclear power plant has been recognized the best among Russian nuclear power plants in terms of safety culture based on the 2014 results. The results of the competition held among branches of Rosenergoatom - nuclear power plants - were announced on December 4, 2014 in the nuclear utility's headquarters in Moscow.

The expert board included top management of Rosenergoatom and chief engineers of all Russian NPPs. Vladimir Verpeta, the Chairman of the Working Group, Deputy Director for Production and Operation of NPPs and Director of the Department for Production Control and Safety, noted that the identification of the best in the field of safety culture in fact was the summing up of results of work of the chief engineer's units during the year.

This process assumes competitiveness of many parameters and practices. In particular, to identify the best nuclear power plants in safety culture, NPP operational events, which led to consequences above Level 0 of the INES scale, are taken account. Violations that led to contamination of the environment, accidents at NPP process facilities and occupational injuries at nuclear power plants are also considered.

To this end, the working group analyzed all safety culture reports prepared by NPPs and based thereof selected advanced practices and identified most significant results. With this, good practices were found nearly at all plants.

Based on the expert commission members' votes, Balakovo NPP got the majority (13). Rostov NPP took the second place with 8 votes.

The competition was established in 2005 in honor of Technical Director of Rosenergoatom Boris Antonov. This year, the best plants were identified for the ninth time. In 2013, two Russian NPPs at a go - Leningrad and Novovoronezh - became the best in safety culture.