Nuclear Plant Journal, September-October 2016 NuclearPlantJournal.com
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Two plants in the United States have
identified themselves as lead plants for
the second license renewal, and EPRI
is working closely with them. Renewal
applications for those two plants are
expected to be submitted in late 2018 or
early 2019.
The data from those plants will be
used to support the generic technical
evaluation that will cover all plants. EPRI
has targeted that for completion in 2021.
“It’s a parallel effort,” Tilley said.
“We’re looking broadly for the data for 80
years, but we’re also looking specifically
at the data needs for these units. At EPRI,
we are always looking over the horizon
and taking a holistic approach to the plant
and its needs.”
Still Performing Well, After 40 Years
The aging of the United States’
nuclear fleet is being well managed;
capacity factors have been well above
90%, which means these plants are very
often operating 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, for 365 days a year.
Of course, that doesn’t just happen,
explained Sherry Bernhoft, LTO
program manager for EPRI. “The basis
for safe, long-term operations is the
implementation of aging management
programs,” she said. “The technical
basis for aging is based on operating
experience and decades of EPRI research.
The aging management programs
address inspection, repair, and as-needed
replacement of components important to
safety.”
Through its LTO program, EPRI
is collaborating with global research
institutes, national laboratories, the
International Atomic Energy Agency,
universities, and vendors. Of particular
interest is the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) LightWater Reactor Sustainability
Program, which also is looking for life-
limiting factors on nuclear plants. EPRI
is coordinating studies with the DOE and
using its data to avoid duplication. The
combined results are providing a robust
technical foundation upon which utilities
can build their decisions for operating
plants to 80 years.
Offsite Power Reliability
Loss of offsite power (LOOP) to a
nuclear power plant (NPP) poses serious
problems to plant operation, personnel,
equipment, and systems. LOOP events
can lead to core damage, and they
represent the single largest contributor
to a site’s core damage frequency (CDF)
risk.
In 2015, EPRI began work to develop
a roadmap to address NPP offsite power
reliability based on detailed operational
experience reviews of LOOP and partial
LOOP events over the last 10 years. The
NuclearOffsitePowerReliability (NOPR)
roadmap includes a review of completed
and ongoing EPRI reliability projects
from multiple sectors to determine which
projects can be applied now to improve
reliability, and identification of areas
where more research and development
are required.
These reviews revealed that there are
a variety of causes for LOOP events, such
as severe weather, equipment failures, and
human performance issues. Equipment
When Performance and Safety Matter
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• Emergent Response Guarantee
• Outage Planning Consulting
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