Listening
to the
Voice of the
Customer
By Mark Marano, Americas Region,
Westinghouse Electric Company.
Mark Marano
Mark Marano brings more than 25
years of nuclear industry and vendor
operations experience as president,
Americas Region.
Marano is
responsible
for customer
relationships,
business plan
development, and
government and
regulatory affairs.
He oversees global
marketing initiatives,
commercial
operations,
and corporate
development,
strategy and facilities
management.
Prior to Westinghouse, he was senior
vice president of Business Development,
AREVA NP in Charlotte, North Carolina
(USA).
Marano holds board directorships
with Westinghouse Electric Company,
Toshiba America Energy Systems,
E4 Carolinas and National Association
of Manufacturers.
Marano graduated from Oswego State
University in 1984 with a Bachelor’s
degree in business administration.
An interview by Newal Agnihotri, Editor
of Nuclear Plant Journal, at Nuclear
Energy Institute’s Nuclear Energy
Assembly in Washington, D.C. on May
13, 2015.
1.
What’s the status of the digital
upgrade?
I see the current state of digital
upgrades in the North American
marketplace through both the utility and
vendor lenses, having spent almost 20
years of my career at five utilities, and
understand reasonably well the utility
business model and how utility customers
pursue the project justification process. I
am hopeful that this knowledge serves
both Westinghouse and our customers. I
think Instrumentation and Control (I&C)
upgrades present a challenging business
case for some utilities – while it’s a
significant upgrade, it also is a substantial
investment. Moving from a manual
to an automated digital environment
is paradigm changing and touches
everything from a plant’s instrumentation
signals to information
received about the
reactor. There is also
uncertainty
around
the timing of license
approval from the
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
In the last few
years,
the
U.S.
nuclear
energy
industry has seen a
decline in investments
such as I&C upgrades
primarily because an
increasing amount of
capital resources are
consumed by regulator-required work
that is needed to meet post-Fukushima
regulations.
Additionally, power prices in the
U.S. have decreased significantly,
due primarily to low gas prices and
subsidized renewables. This has reduced
the availability of capital for long-term
investments and has resulted in utilities
shifting to performing digital upgrades in
steps. The utilities understand that analog
may not be the long-term ideal situation.
Eventually, if plant life is to extend to 60
or 80 years, a plan must be in place to
address I&C system replacements. But in
the interim, in order to manage budgets,
utility customers know that Westinghouse
can provide new component replacements
for their plants’ systems until such time as
a complete upgrade is required.
Once our customers have settled
on expenditures related to security and
post-Fukushima
modifications,
the
Ovation
®
system is the Westinghouse
system of choice for full I&C upgrades.
We stand ready to provide full I&C
upgrades when our customers are ready.
Currently, we are doing some smaller-
scale I&C installations and component
replacements.
2.
What are the major challenges with
analog right now?
The main challenge for analog
systems is maintaining them. Will the
replacement parts be there when they are
needed? We know of some component
replacement vendors that have had some
challenges in both quality and availability.
Some are either no longer in business or
have been acquired by another company.
So the big questions for utilities are: will
the needed components be available, and
will the components function as required?
At Westinghouse, we deploy more
than 100,000 genuine nuclear replacement
parts and components annually to the
global nuclear fleet. This is one way
we help utilities meet the challenge of
maintaining the safety and efficiency of
their analog systems until they are ready
to gain the added benefits of digital.
Westinghouse replacement parts
and components are cost-effective, high-
quality, nuclear grade and are available
for a wide variety of reactor designs.
Westinghouse maintains a robust quality
assurance program and equipment
qualification program for its replacement
parts
and
components
business.
Westinghouse has strong partnerships
and formal technical agreements in place
with original equipment manufacturers
that allow us to access proprietary
manufacturing and design information as
needed.
3.
Are there a lot of utilities still going
ahead with digital upgrades?
Many utilities seem to be performing
digital upgrades in steps. We are currently
performing more of what we call drop-
in solutions. These are digital upgrades
focused on specific existing systems
versus digital upgrades of a complete I&C
system. We do this by applying pragmatic
long-term asset management methods
40
NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2015
