Verification of licencee's monitoring of radioactive effluents from nuclear power plants

For more than 30 years, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) and its predecessor authority respectively, have been verifying the reliability and quality of the licencee’s monitoring of radioactive effluents by power plant operators.

Example: Analysis result of the interlaboratory of waste 2013

Instruments for quality assurance

Key instruments for quality assurance are a control measurement programme and interlaboratory comparisons. To this end, the BfS - in its capacity as an expert appointed by the competent supervisory authorities - performs control measurements.

Control measurement programme

All samples used for assessment are submitted to the BfS by the operators. The BfS selects random samples among those submitted samples and performs its own activity determinations.

Exhaust air sample

Interlaboratory comparisons

Together with the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB, National Metrology Institute of Germany), the BfS organises an annual

• interlaboratory comparison "exhaust air" for measuring the activity of selected radionuclides on standard preparations as well as (see figure "exhaust air sample prepared for measurement")
• interlaboratory comparison "waste water" for determining the radionuclide composition of a model waste water sample and a real waste water sample from a nuclear installation (see figure "waste water samples prepared for interlaboratory comparison measurements").

Waste water samples prepared for interlaboratory comparison measurements

It is mandatory for the operators of nuclear installations or for their contracted measurement laboratories to participate in these interlaboratory comparisons.

The interlaboratory comparisons allow the objective evaluation of the quality of the measurement values determined in the framework of licencee's monitoring.

In recent years, the participation of international measurement laboratories has increased.

If you are interested in the interlaboratory tests of the BfS, you can register by e-mail:

• for exhaust air: leitstelle-fortluft@bfs.de
• for waste water: leitstelle-h@bfs.de.

Expert talks

Expert talks in the fields of "exhaust air" and "waste water" are held regularly by the BfS. All competent supervisory authorities and operators of nuclear power plants participate in the talks.

At the talks, the BfS provides information on current problems identified during control measurements. Furthermore, expert talks are a significant contribution to communicating the state of the art of science and technology in the field of emission monitoring.