Nuclear Safety
Our most fundamental workplace goal is to send every employee home safe and sound, every day.
That is the only acceptable standard of performance.
While nuclear energy is one of the safest power production technologies in the world, Dominion Energy
uses redundant systems, rigorous protocols, and constant training to maintain the highest levels of
protection and security.
Nuclear power stations are designed, built, operated, and guarded with multiple, redundant layers of
safety and security to ensure that nothing will go wrong — and that in the event of an unlikely mishap,
the system will shut down immediately and the consequences will be completely contained. That is
precisely what happened in 2011, when a 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck a region of Virginia less than
a dozen miles away from Dominion Energy’s North Anna Power Station. Both reactors shut down
automatically, and emergency equipment safely cooled both reactors, as it was designed to do.
In the extremely unlikely event that all redundant safety systems failed, Dominion Energy has a separate
set of equipment — including portable electric generators, water pumps, and hoses — that can be
deployed to keep the station safe. Such "FLEX" equipment was installed at every nuclear station in the
United States following the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan in 2011.
Dominion Energy also maintains stringent requirements for those who work at or visit its nuclear stations.
Armed security officers are highly trained. Employees are subject to background checks; drug, alcohol,
and psychological screening; credit-history reviews; fitness-for-duty standards; random drug and alcohol
testing; and regular training and testing. Our nuclear station operators spend 20% of their time in
classroom and simulator training.
20%
of our nuclear station operators’ time is spent in classroom and simulator training