The Swiss radiation protection ordinance in routine nuclear power plant operation and during revision outages

The ICRP 60 recommendations by the International Commission on Radiological Protection were taken into account in the revision of the Radiation Protection Act and the Radiation Protection Ordinance in Switzerland as early as 1994. Despite initial scepticism expressed by some experts especially about the observance of the individual dose of 20 mSv/a, application of the new regulations and the new, lower limits caused no major problems in the nuclear power plants in Switzerland. As all Swiss nuclear power plants, without exception, are seeking to modernize their facilities, keep them in excellent condition and run them without incidents, the manifold efforts within the framework of this policy taken also to achieve a high level of radiation protection have resulted in collective and individual doses being very low and any impact of plant operation on the environment or on persons, e.g. as a result of radioactive releases, being negligible.