A counter terrorism emergency exercise is taking place at Hunterston B Power Station this month.

It is part of their extensive training in emergency response arrangements throughout the year.

Training and exercises in the recent times include radiological breaches, fires, search and rescue, seismic activity, and other procedures. The parent company EDF Energy are planning to expand their fire team training to include rescue from height training rigs.

Later in January, EDF will be demonstrating their capability to deal with a significant plant fault to a team of internal assessors, and in March, they will be holding their annual demonstration to the nuclear regulators.

In their recent report presented at the Hunterston Site Stakeholders group meeting, EDF Energy reported that there were no lost time incidents reported by EDF or their contract partners. It has been 2467 days (more than six years) since the last EDF lost time accident.

However, during the recent Hunterston reactor four outage, key root cracks were found, but were well within the safetly limits, and two running gas circulators were switched off in error, and had to be replaced.

Site director Colin Weir said: “Throughout this period we have faced some challenges through our excellent engagement and team work coupled with high standards of nuclear professionalism and accountability, we have achieved a very good safety performance.”