The RB maintains a careful check on the licensee’s activities during opera­tion of the NPP to ensure that the plant is operated within the prescribed safety envelope and that other licensing conditions are complied with. This is done through review of the various operational reports, reports on safety — related incidents and on activities during refuelling outages and other extended outages at the plant. The RB also conducts periodic regulatory inspections and audits of records to physically verify the compliance of license conditions, and to check on the general upkeep of the NPP.

As discussed in Section 20.5.6 above, detailed and comprehensive PSRs of the NPP operation are undertaken by the licensee at specified intervals, typically every 10 years. The RB carefully checks the reports of such reviews to confirm that the NPP is meeting the current safety requirements and is likely to continue to meet them till the next PSR. During all these reviews, the RB should make extensive use of the operating experience from NPPs of similar design as well as other nuclear and conventional industries, as far as is applicable.

The main goal of the surveillance by the authority is to make sure that the operator follows the law and the conditions of the license. Surveillance is carried out by inspectors and assessors within the RB. There may be dif­ferences in the detailed approach undertaken in different countries, or within countries. As an example, data in paragraph A.3 of the Annex describes the activities and efforts undertaken in 2006 in Baden- Wurttemberg, Germany, for which an assessment of the surveillance process is available (ILK, 2006).