The management and organization of plant operations should be such as to ensure a high level of performance and safety in operations. Operation of the power plant is performed by monitoring and controlling the plant systems in accordance with relevant rules, operating procedures, established operational limits and conditions and administrative procedures. Shift per­sonnel need to be authorized or licensed, both at the beginning of operation and also at regular intervals (every year, for instance). Such authorization or licensing has to be approved by the regulator. The reference IAEA (2000), Safety Standards Series, Safety Requirements for a Nuclear Power Plant Operation, NS-R-2, explains all the recommendations for the safe operation of a nuclear power plant.

The plant organization should clearly define the roles and responsibilities of all plant staff: the operations manager has the overall responsibility for establishing and implementing the operations programme and has the responsibility for the day-to-day running of the operations. The resources, both human and financial, need to be sufficient for all operating functions. Control room operators have to be licensed and to know all procedures and be regularly trained appropriately.

The plant organization has to fix as its first priority ‘safety first’ for all personnel. This means enforcing a good safety culture. Adequate training needs to be given on safety culture.

Special procedures have to be organized for maintenance, refuelling, shutdown activities, regular testing and outage activities.

The plant needs to promote plans for human resources training, retrain­ing and authorization/licensing of operators. For a lifetime of 60 years for the plant, personnel needs should be anticipated for compensating for retirement and for new specialities that will be required, such as for decommissioning.

Operating experience and feedback is essential for ensuring the safety of the plant. It requires investigating all events which could or did affect the plant operational safety. The analysis should be shared with the regulatory body and with all the plant operators worldwide. The IAEA document IAEA (2008b), Improving the International System for Operating Experience Feedback, INSAG-23, and the Incident Reporting System of the IAEA/ NEA demonstrate the necessity of exchanging information on events which occurred worldwide.

As the plant life goes, plant ageing management has to be put in place. It is recommended that a periodic safety review process is carried out every 10 years to provide reassurance that the licensing basis is still valid, taking into account cumulative ageing effects, obsolescence of equipment or mate­rials, modifications implemented during the plant life, lessons from world­wide operating experience, results of advanced research and changes in international safety standards. The IAEA (2009b) Safety Standards Series document Ageing Management for Nuclear Power Plants, NS-G-2.12, gives all requirements for dealing with ageing.

Transportation of radioactive materials in safe and secure conditions will be prepared in the country and internationally as need be. Transportation may be by road, rail, sea or air. More information can be found in IAEA (2009c), Safety Standards Series, Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, TS-R-1; IAEA (2007a), Considerations to Launch a Nuclear Power Programme; and IAEA (2008c), Nuclear Security Series Guidelines, Security in the Transport of Radioactive Material, no. 9.

Security should be enforced to protect all radioactive material from diversion or terrorism as required by the relevant ratified conventions. All relevant information can be found in IAEA (2008c), Nuclear Security Series Guidelines, Security in the Transport of Radioactive Material, no. 9.

A very detailed and structured documentation programme needs to capture all operational data that may be of use for the decommissioning plan. From the beginning of the life of the installation, a decommissioning plan has to be approved by the regulatory body and to be updated regularly. At the end of the lifetime, the final plan has to be approved before stopping the installation and starting to unload the used fuel. Financial provisions should be accumulated throughout the life of the plant and kept at the level necessary for the decommissioning operations. These should include the used fuel management and the waste management resulting from the decommissioning phase.