Part of a winning team
The winners of the 2022/23 Wave Awards have been announced and we are so proud to have played an integral part in one of the winning packages of work.
Waves is an internal awards scheme set up by Sellafield Ltd to recognise and celebrate the work of employees, teams, and partners across the business. The ‘Significant Electrical hazard reduction in SNM’ is the winner of the category ‘Safe, secure, sustainable site stewardship: Exemplify proactive, safety, security and sustainability’, which is a great result for all involved, including our own consultant, Mike Gill. This work is great example of what we can offer nuclear and similar regulated industries. So, what exactly was the challenge and what part did COMS play?
The Problem…
A legacy Electrical Distribution System (EDS) within a Sellafield Cat-1 Nuclear facility was installed in the 1950’s when the building was first constructed. The building was extended further in the 60’s and 80’s where additional electrical infrastructure was installed. This legacy EDS system was made up of over 190 distribution boards with approximately 80% of these boards and associated cabling installed in the 1950’s.
A Project to replace the legacy EDS system was initiated and registered as a high risk Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) Level 1 Project due to a number of factors, such as:
- Being deemed electrically unsafe due to age
- No longer meeting the requirements of modern electrical regulations
- The system exceeding its operational life expectancy of 25 years
- Obsolescence and degradation of the equipment and infrastructure
- Differing system/component specifications and manufacturers
- Recent failures with a realistic expectation of more failures over time.
The solution…
The EDS Project utilised a vast range of resources and stakeholders to complete a highly complex electrical system installation overlay and changeover of electrical distribution within a fully operational Cat 1 facility. The scope was implemented using a task by task, phased approach to minimise impact on plant operations.
The result…
The EDS Project has been successful in removing the risks associated with the legacy system, whilst exemplifying proactive Safety, Security and Sustainable Site Stewardship Sustainability with a significant Electrical Hazard Reduction.
Our input…
COMS were engaged to deliver various scoped packages of work for the EDS Project and over the last few years our Engineers have provided integral support. They have were instrumental in developing and delivering:
- Overarching Strategy Paper
- Plant Modification Proposals (PMP)
- PMP Hand-over & close-out
- Complex Interruption of supply statements (ISS) (capturing all affects and mitigations that isolations will have on critical systems, Safety Case, Health & Safety, Operations etc)
- Safety Method Statements (for all tasks – instructing how the changeover of supplies from old to new were to be implemented)
- Pre-Operations, including Computerised Maintenance management System (CMMS) and Operations & Maintenance Instructions
We are proud that our contribution has delivered such impressive results and being part of an award winning project team is a recognition of that fantastic work.
To explore how COMS can benefit your project or package of work, contact us for a free consultation.