Much of the UK’s nuclear power station fleet has moved to 12-hour shifts as their operator EDF implements its emergency pandemic response plans, Utility Week has learnt.
It is understood that crews at the stations have mostly switched to the new working patterns as part of a temporary suite of measures to mitigate the impacts of the virus.
The move, which has been introduced in consultation with the trade unions, will enable plants to run on two shifts per day rather than three, meaning fewer people will be required daily on site.
In a move to further minimise physical contact, the company has introduced remote handovers, which will sometimes be conducted over Skype.
In order to maintain staffing levels at the nuclear plants, the company is also taking steps to bolster the ranks of those who are authorised for nuclear operational roles.
The company has drawn up lists of those who have switched out of roles such as shift managers and control room staff in the past 12 to 18 months, into other jobs on the station.
EDF is understood to be considering if those staff can be authorised, via a process approved by the Office for Nuclear Regulation, so they can return to nuclear operations roles if they are required to help maintain operations.
The plants have been hit by absenteeism rates of up to 10 per cent due to individuals or their household members developing coronavirus symptoms.
An EDF spokesperson said: “Staffing levels are lower than normal due to a combination of measures we have put in place and the desire to protect our more vulnerable employees.”
But the company has said that is “extremely unlikely” to have to quarantine plants, using only solely workers living on site to run them in order to protect against the risk of infection spreading amongst key workers.
The spokesperson said: “As with all aspects of safely managing nuclear power stations, we are preparing for a range of scenarios. Residential working is a very extreme scenario which, although we cannot foresee a situation where it could happen, we will prepare for as we are a responsible operator. As a precaution we have identified where key staff could sleep and how EDF would provide food and drink. We have already asked staff in relevant work areas for volunteers and have been overwhelmed by the positive response.
“It is extremely unlikely we will get to this position because as some staff develop symptoms and go into self-isolation, others are returning from absence. That turnover has enabled us to continue our operations and we are also introducing further protective measures, such as thermographic cameras designed to identify those with high temperatures, to provide assurance to staff and further minimise risks.”
EDF is examining the postponement of non-essential maintenance in order to minimise the number of people at its nuclear power plants but is continuing work at some sites to return units from short and long term outages.
The spokesperson stressed that the nuclear stations had been able to sustain generation levels throughout the crisis.
“We acted very quickly to implement our pandemic response plans and have so far managed to sustain power generation levels at planned rates.