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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, January-February 2016
6.
Talk about like local control panels
or starting from the instrumentation itself,
local control panel, auxiliary electrical
equipment room.
Since our simulator has 12
independent working stations, we’re
able to run a scenario on any one of
them, using state-of-the-art computer
codes; RELAP5 for thermal hydraulic
simulation coupled to Casmo-Simulate
for neutronics simulation. Our simulator
allows us to explore the integrated
behavior across the entire plant. We’re
using our simulator to perform our human
factor studies, to optimize how many
operators we need to control 12 modules.
That’s part of the learning, the research
that we’re doing right now. We’re
following the NRC guidelines on how
to do that work and also to develop our
human-system interface to define what
our control panels will look like. We have
about 20 reactor operators with over 500
years of combined commercial and naval
nuclear experience helping us to lay out
the panels so that the operators would feel
comfortable operating multiple modules.
We’ve had the NRC visit our simulator
to participate in three days of running
scenarios. Again, it wouldn’t have been
possible without the advancements in
digital I&C over the many years.
7.
What is Fluor’s contribution?
Fluor is our primary investor and a
strategic partner. A good majority of the
balance of plant work is being done by
Fluor. And of course, when it comes time
to build the plants, Fluor would like to be
the EPC. Recently, Fluor was awarded
two contracts to manage the completion
of construction at the V.C. Summer
Nuclear Station in South Carolina, and
at Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia.
Vogtle and V.C. Summer are the only
commercial nuclear reactors currently
under construction in the United States.
This is really valuable experience that
Fluor is gaining right now—completing
those plants under 10CFR part 52. When
those plants are complete, Fluor will be in
an excellent position to build the NuScale
plants.
8.
What’s the concept for the refueling?
In partnership with Areva, our design
consists of 17 by 17 fuel assemblies with
37 assemblies in each module. NuScale
Fuel assemblies are about half the height
of standard 17 X 17 PWR fuel assemblies.
So our core contains roughly 5% of the
fuel contained in a typical Gigawatt-
size LWR. The refueling process of
shuffling assemblies is itself very similar
to what’s being done, conventionally
today. However what’s different with the
NuScale plant is that because you have
12 modules, you refuel modules one at
a time, allowing the rest of the plant to
continue to produce power. In addition,
this sequence allows refueling to be
performed by in-house plant maintenance
staff, who will perform a refueling every
other month. So this team will become
very good at performing refueling and
we will not be bringing in a thousand
temporary nuclear outage workers to
support refuelings, as is common practice
for other plants. So you only take 50 MW
off the grid, and you continue to produce
550 MW. The NuScale plant is producing
24/7; never shut down, always producing
power.
9.
Concluding comments.
I look at what NuScale has to offer
in terms of the size and flexibility for
deployment, and it’s a great match with
developing countries, with a smaller
grid, or with countries like the US, who
are retiring coal-fired plants and need a
replacement. The flexibility to install
NuScale Power Modules as needed is a
perfect fit.
Contact: James Mellott, NuScale
Power, 6650 SW Redwood Lane,
Suite 210, Portland OR 97224; email:
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