Newcastle based Corporate Risk Associates, the UK’s largest independent risk management consultancy, has been – for the last two years – playing a key role in providing safety and risk consulting expertise to the EPR nuclear power station design that is scheduled to be built at Hinkley Point C (HPC) in the UK.
Since December 2013, the company has provided specialist services to support the French designer including;
- SQEP PSA resources to ensure the project meets ONR safety standards
- Specialist work in Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA)
- Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
- Risk Informed Design (RID)
- HAZID chair and secretary
- EDF Fault Tree analysis tool – KB3
- Safety case
To successfully support the project and to most effectively provide the high level of expertise that CRA is known for, the company has embedded a number of CRA team members at various locations in France to provide the on hand support and development necessary to complete the project.
Two of CRA’s PSA engineers, Robert Meconi and Manuel Martinez-Cid, travelled to Paris to perform specialist work in building the PSA for the HPC EPR nuclear power plant. The company then embedded a further two safety engineers, James Cooke and Marinos Panayiotou, to perform FMEA on the EPR’s most vital heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The companies CEO, Jasbir Sidhu, also travelled to the site in August of this year, to provide expertise for the development of the HVAC Safety Case for the HPC EPR and also provide in-depth knowledge and expertise of UK Nuclear reactors and UK safety regulations to aid the French EPR Design.
Marinos Panayiotou, Safety Engineer at CRA who has been providing support to the plant since March of this year commented, “We have been heavily involved in PSA for the HPC EPR for the past few years. This is down to recognition for our innovating thinking and high standards of work. When partnering with CRA our clients tend to progressively gain confidence in us with various additional areas of work. “
CRA also play a vital role in providing a UK context to the French EPR design to ensure that safety standards within the UK are met and currently have one of its PSA Engineers (Josh Gordon) based in SEPTEN, Lyon, providing fault tree analysis of essential systems.
Jasbir Sidhu, CEO at CRA said “The various projects we have carried out to provide support to Hinkley Point C acknowledges CRA as an international entity specialising in Safety and Risk Management Consulting. We have played a key role in the design and construction of the first EPR that will be built in HPC UK. This is a notable achievement for us, which will assist the company develop further in its plans to expand into the overseas market”.
CRA specialises in providing safety, risk and reliability consultancy services to safety critical industries including nuclear, power, transportation and defence. The company has five offices across the UK in Surrey, Gloucester, London, Newcastle and Warrington.