The 20th annual meeting of the regulatory authorities of the countries operating VVERs (VVER Forum) took place during December 11-13 in Kanyakumari, India. The Rostechnadzor delegation was headed by the Acting Chairman Alexey Ferapontov.

The heads and experts of the nuclear safety regulatory authorities of Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, India and Ukraine attended the Forum. A representative of Germany also took part as an observer.

The participants reported on the most significant and safety-related occurrences in operation of the nuclear power plants with VVER reactors and exchanged information on the developments in the area of nuclear and radiation safety regulation that have taken place in their countries since the time of the previous meeting.

Also, the working groups established within the VVER Forum reported on their latest activities on the issues of probabilistic safety analysis and requirements to fabrication quality and safety justification of nuclear fuel for the VVER NPPs. The meeting suggested that two new working groups should be established – one for reactor physics analysis and the other for safety regulation during commissioning of new NPPs. Their activities will be coordinated by India.

The next Forum meeting will be held in Finland tentatively in June 2014 and hosted by the Finnish Nuclear and Radiation Safety Authority (STUK).