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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, March-April 2015
Brian Shaler
Mr. Shaler is an electrical engineer at
the Palisades Nuclear Plant, in South
Haven, Michigan, with thirty years
of engineering
experience in
nuclear plants. He
identified the OTEK
meters discussed
in this article
as a solution to
an obsolescence
problem. He
prepared the first
engineering design
change to begin
installing digital meters in nuclear safety
and non-safety related applications.
He has a BSEE, Western Michigan
University and MBA, Davenport
University Online.
Plans were generated to stretch over many
years changing out instruments in phases.
Critical applications were usually the
first to be converted to digital technology
and additional applications were added
as these phases were completed. This
approach created an unsuspected time
bomb. With so many suppliers competing
for the business of so few plants, there
was not enough business available.
As a result, distributors, resellers and
system integrators abandoned the
market and closed.
Most
detrimental
to the plants were
the many “private
labels” that left no
trace behind them. A
few years into their
upgrading
plans,
the plants could no
longer obtain the
products for which
they had spent so
much time and money testing, qualifying
and rewiring. Nearly 10 million dollars
spent towards the upgrading was
essentially wasted and plants were forced
to start over with new upgrading plans.
The majority of the 100 Reactors
that still use 1800’s technology, and the
few reactors that pursued the change-
out, were now both facing similar
complications due to obsolescence. Both
are essentially scavenging for suitable
replacements. In addition, the second
generation technology is almost 40 years
old now and as outdated as the first
generation. Today this creates a huge
dilemma, especially since many reactors
are being re-licensed for the next 20 or
more years.
Introduced a little less than 10
years ago with great advances in DCS/
SCADA, flat screen instrumentation
became available. This third generation
of technology incorporated all the “bells
and whistles” of digital, while replacing
multiple instruments with one new unit.
This forced plants to put “all their eggs
in one basket.” The changeover requires
several years of planning and thousands
of man-hours of design, construction,
qualification,
implementation
and
operator training. Changing to flat screens
also did not resolve the complication
of powering the new device. Change-
out costs ranged from 50 to 200 million
dollars. Among new plants the third
generation was well received. Established
plants, however, had already been burned
once and were even more reluctant to
take the risk of another proposed change
out. While still surviving in the market,
flat screen technology has an even steeper
uphill climb.
With only these three problematic
options available, it leaves I&C rooms
in real trouble. Many new plants are
being constructed and planned, plants are
being re-certified and old instruments are
continuously failing in established plants.
The industry and market demands more.
In the early 1990s NPP nuclear power
plants in Arizona, Vermont, Tennessee &
Florida contacted & contracted a small
private company OTEK Corporation to
design & manufacture replacements for
obsolete models of several instruments
Foxboro 257, Bailey 775, GE 180, DB40,
SA 101/102, VX252 and others. The
projects were successful but there was
something missing. What was it? While
promoting the new replacements, the
president of OTEK Corporation realized
that to succeed, the replacers had to:
a) Replace fit, form and function
in the existing analog & digitals,
instruments,
b) eliminate the need to rewire the
panels,
c) avoid redesigning the emergency
power generators and
d) avoid obsolescence and private
labeling.
In 2013, at the Nuclear Procurement
Committee/American Nuclear Society
(NUPIC/ANS) symposium in Florida,
Analog to Digital...
New Technology Meter..
