Nuclear Plant Journal, January-February 2016 NuclearPlantJournal.com
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configurations and power cycles. This
technology delivers enterprise data
visibility across power plant and fleet-
wide footprints, providing a holistic
understanding of the operational decisions
that can expand capabilities, such as
related to outage management, lower
production costs and improved reliability.
Operations personnel can compare fleet
performance historically, or to operating
specifications of a digital twin of the
plant, or to our benchmark data. Plant
managers can measure performance,
operational flexibility, system availability
and dispatch optimization.
Digital Power Plant’s
Business Op-
timization
suite of applications will help
deliver exceptional forecasting. Today,
the most competitive power producers
understand that the value of forecasting
performances and related operational
factors is based on the right combination
of engineering expertise, physics-based
analytics and current plant operating
data. This blend of capabilities can de-
liver dynamically not only the visibility,
but also the insights needed to identify
any underlying degradation impact and
resulting true plant capability. Business
Optimization solutions will be available
to our customers in 2016.
3. How does Predix address cyber
security concerns for the nuclear
industry?
The
current
Predix
nuclear
applications focus on providing better
information to decision makers in
the plants at either a management or
maintenance level. At this time Predix
in not being deployed at the machine
or safety related system level, often
described as zone 4 in the nuclear
industry, and we are adhering to all
cyber regulations that apply. There
are many potential configurations for
user access, however in most cases
users will access the applications we
are developing via Predix Cloud which
is designed with the most advanced
security protocols available, including
customized, adaptive security solutions
for industrial operators and developers.
We leverage advanced connectivity-
as-a-service for industrial assets which
combines proprietary technologies with
global telecommunications partners to
enable rapid provisioning of sensor data,
gateways and software-defined machines.
Predix Cloud will operate seamlessly
with applications and services running in
a broad spectrum of cloud environments.
As such, businesses will be able to take
advantage of its optimized security
and data structure offerings while also
maintaining existing solutions at their
facilities. Unlike public cloud services,
which are open to any individual or
organization, Predix Cloud is based on a
“gated community” model to ensure that
users of the cloud belong to the industrial
ecosystem.
4. In addition to applications built on
Predix, how are customers considering
Predix in other aspects of their business?
As Predix is open source, partners,
customers and others can also become
developers on Predix to create their own
analytics and applications. On the Predix
Cloud, developers will have visibility into
their operating environments. In doing
so, businesses will be able to deploy
and monitor machine apps anywhere,
continuously adjusting to new demands
in the physical and digital world while
providing the security and visibility
required for operational effectiveness.
Again, it is about providing more
insightful information to make better
decisions, faster than organizations have
in the past.
5. What is driving interest in Predix
among nuclear industry customers?
Predix was created to help
industrial organizations take the next
big step in operation performance, asset
performance, and a total improvement of
their individual power generating assets
as well as their entire fleets. Some of
the greatest advantages seen by Predix
users so far include industries with a high
volume of deep human know how.
The nuclear industry has been
sharing know how and best practices
openly for many years which has led to
extreme levels of performance. However,
this has often required extreme levels
of effort. There are limited levels of
improvement that the human brain can
continue to make across the nuclear
fleet. Predix is the tool that can unlock
the next major step change as an enabler
for deep domain experts to do things they
previously only dreamed were possible.
Within our industry, there is both
the need and opportunity to change how
we approach our outages, monitoring,
operations, knowledge management, and
maintenance of the systems in our plants,
and more through data analytics. We want
to work with our customers and partners
to create those next major step changes
in our industry. The openness and
continuous improvement culture of the
nuclear industry is a great match for what
we created within Predix and the Platform
as a Service (Paas) methodology. Predix
simplifies our ability to leverage and
merge information from existing data,
systems, analytics and human know-
how to create these new digital industrial
solutions.
Contact: Jon Allen, GE Hitachi
Nuclear Energy, 3901 Castle Hayne
Road, Wilmington, North Carolina,
28401; telephone: (910) 819-2581,
email:
.
Core Shroud Support
Westinghouse Electric Company
with subsidiary WesDyne Sweden AB
has been selected by OKG AB to develop
and qualify techniques and equipment to
inspect the core shroud support at OKG
AB’s Oskarshamn unit 3 Nuclear Power
Plant (NPP) in Sweden.
The contract scope includes
developing and qualifying ultrasonic
and eddy current techniques for 70
millimeter thick Inconel 182 welds, as
well as two new manipulators to inspect
approximately 35 meters in five different
weld segments. One of the manipulators
will enter the inspection area through the
restricted core grid openings inside the
reactor that measure only about 300-by-
300 millimeters.
The work will be performed
primarily at WesDyne Sweden AB, a
nondestructive inspection branch of
Westinghouse located in Täby, Sweden.
Contact: Westinghouse Electric
Company, telephone: (412) 374-6379,
Contracts...
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