Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power's 'Nuclear Plant Planned Maintenance' Costs Arbitrarily Inflated... Including Canceled Processes and Doubling Expenses

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Caught in Internal Audit of Planned Preventive Maintenance Since 2017
3 Nuclear Headquarters Used Arbitrary Cost Estimation... No Disciplinary Actions Taken

A view of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power headquarters located in Gyeongju.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Park Dong-wook] It has been revealed that a significant portion of the Nuclear Power Headquarters at Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), which was harshly criticized during the National Assembly audit for omitting essential inspections in planned preventive maintenance of nuclear power plants, had been arbitrarily pricing parts during the maintenance process.

'Planned preventive maintenance' (Overhaul) refers to maintenance conducted by stopping nuclear power plant operations on a roughly biennial cycle in a planned manner, in accordance with the Enforcement Decree of the Nuclear Safety Act and related regulations. This is carried out to ensure the continuous and safe operation of nuclear power plants.

In one Nuclear Power Headquarters, costs for canceled processes were included, while another headquarters was found to have paid contractors more than double the planned preventive maintenance costs for a specific nuclear power plant.

These facts were confirmed through an internal audit by KHNP headquarters, which found it suspicious that the actual settlement work quantities varied for each power plant after planned maintenance work. The audit was conducted from late September to early November, targeting Nuclear Power Headquarters that had performed planned preventive maintenance work since January 2017.

According to KHNP on the 19th, Nuclear Power Headquarters A was found to have wasted approximately 426 million KRW by misapplying cost investigations or inflating design work quantities during planned preventive maintenance on four nuclear reactors.

At one nuclear power plant, despite recording and settling the complete disassembly of the stop valve in the 'maintenance details,' no actual work was performed.

Nuclear Power Headquarters B lost about 49.7 million KRW by recklessly calculating, including duplicating work orders for four nuclear reactors, and Headquarters C overspent approximately 239 million KRW on four nuclear reactors by settling with previously issued work orders even for reduced or unperformed processes.

In particular, Headquarters C recorded in the 'maintenance details' that the CV-FV LP stop valve was completely disassembled and inspected, but in reality, no such work was done.

KHNP confirmed these facts through the audit but only instructed the relevant headquarters to deduct the costs from the next project payments to the related contractors and did not discipline a single person involved. This has drawn criticism as a typical case of 'protecting one's own members.'

Meanwhile, last year's National Assembly audit raised concerns about KHNP's inadequate safety management after pointing out that over 820 items were omitted from the planned preventive maintenance checklist for nuclear power plants.

At that time, Rep. Lee Hoon (Democratic Party), a member of the National Assembly's Industry, Trade, Small and Medium Enterprises Committee, stated during the audit of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and five thermal power companies, "KHNP omitted 823 maintenance items in planned preventive maintenance conducted between 2014 and 2017," raising issues about KHNP's safety complacency.

Based on data submitted by KHNP, Rep. Lee criticized, "Notably, 198 omitted items were classified as high safety grades A and B."

According to the data, the nuclear power plant with the most omissions was Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant. Among them, Wolseong Unit 3 accounted for 221 omissions, one-quarter of the total 823 omissions, the highest number. Following were Wolseong Unit 4 with 137 omissions, Wolseong Unit 2 with 94, and Wolseong Unit 1 with 64, with Wolseong units alone accounting for over 60% of the total omissions at 516 cases.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.