The BASE's Incident Registration Centre
The Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) is the central federal authority responsible for dealing with reportable events at power plants and other nuclear facilities. It operates the Incident Registration Centre for this purpose.
Plant operators must first notify reportable events to the competent authorities at Land level. The supervisory authority reports the event to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and, in parallel, to the BASE’s Incident Registration Centre and to the Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) gGmbH. The competent Land authority conducts an evaluation of the operator’s report – if necessary with reference to experts – and prescribes any measures that may be necessary. INES classification is proposed by the operator and reviewed by the national INES officer.
The BASE’s Incident Registration Centre is charged with recording and documenting all reportable events occurring in German nuclear power plants or other nuclear facilities which are notified to the competent Land regulatory authority and in turn forwarded to the BASE. The Incident Registration Centre assesses these events on behalf of the BMUV. The Centre supports the BMUV in its task of informing the general public of reportable events at regular intervals and publishes this information on the internet. In addition to the monthly updated reports, the BASE prepares annual reports on reportable events, categorised by nuclear power plants, research reactors and nuclear fuel cycle facilities. Reports from previous years are archived. Further information on the reporting procedure, maps showing the locations of the nuclear facilities subject to the reporting requirement, and information about the status of the various facilities are available on the website as well.