July-August 2018 NPJ

12 NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2018 Utility, Industry & Corporation Utility Training Center Quad Cities Generating Station employees welcomed local and state officials to the site to unveil the nuclear station’s expanded, state of the art employee training center. The project created 600 direct and indirect jobs for local contractors, laborers and suppliers. The Professional Learning Center project was among $20 million in construction and facility improvements at Quad Cities Station over the past year. The project was spearheaded by Burling Builders, Inc., an African American-owned, Chicago-based firm that has successfully completed similar facilities in Illinois. This partnership is an example of Exelon Generation’s overall commitment to advancing supplier diversity. In addition to the Professional Learning Center expansion, Rock Island- basedValleyConstruction received amore than $10 million contract for expansion of the station’s used fuel storage pad, more than a third of which will be spent with a local diversity certified subcontractor. Koehler Electric, Shive-Hattery and Crawford Company also spearheaded multiple facility upgrades and remodeling projects this year at the nuclear plant. Quad Cities-based Ryan and Associates also recently completed construction of a new maintenance facility on the north side of plant property. Contact: Linsey Wisniewski, Exelon Generation, telephone: (630) 657-4209, email: linsey.wisniewski@exeloncorp. com. Industry Nuclear Energy Funding U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced the Department of Energy (DOE) has selected nine domestic projects to receive nearly $20 million in funding for cost-shared research and development for advanced nuclear technologies. These awards are through the Office of Nuclear Energy’s (NE) funding opportunity announcement (FOA) U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development and are the second group selected under this solicitation. The first group was announced on April 27, 2018. Subsequent quarterly application review and selection processes will be conducted over the next five years. The Department intends to apply approximately $30 million of additional FY 2018 funding to the next quarterly award cycle for innovative proposals under this FOA. These activities are important because they support various aspects of existing and advanced reactor development, and they establish domestic capabilities for safer, more efficient, clean baseload energy that will support the U.S. economy and energy independence. These awards are examples of the private-public partnerships needed to help successfully develop innovative domestic nuclear technologies. The projects will allow industry-led teams, which include participants from federal agencies, public and private laboratories, institutions of higher education, and other domestic entities, to advance the state of U.S. commercial nuclear capability. Contact: DOE, telephone: (202) 586-5000. Support Missions The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), the world’s leading safety organisation for commercial nuclear power plants, has published new figures that reveal it delivered 246 member support missions to its members in 2017. The figures show that there has been an increase of 15% in the number of missions conducted in 2017, when compared to the previous year. Member support missions are carried out at the request of a member plant or utility. They provide a means for WANO members to assist each other in improving safety or reliability at an individual member’s plant. A team of peers is selected for a member support mission from WANO’s membership on the basis of their expertise in the applicable area. The team then visits the member plant to review issues either identified during the peer review, or by the plant itself, and then works closely with the member to close the gap to excellent performance. Throughout 2017, WANO’s missions addressed a wide range of topics, such as work management, human performance, equipment reliability, radiationprotection, operations, outage management and organisational effectiveness. Contact: Tim Jeffery, WANO, telephone: 44 (0) 20 7478 9207/+44, email: tim.jeffery@wano.org. Corporation DCS Platform China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) signed an agreement with UK-based engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce at the third World Nuclear Exhibition (WNE) in Paris, France on June 26, 2018. The agreement will see CGN cooperate more closely with Rolls-Royce to improve the nuclear-grade distributed control system (DCS) solutions with their own advantages for customers across the globe. This was the third time CGN has attended the WNE. It promoted its “FirmSys”, China’s first nuclear-grade DCS platform developed by CGN subsidiary China Techenergy Co to players in the nuclear power industry from all over the world. The “FirmSys”, known as the central nervous system of nuclear power plants, is a nuclear-grade digital I & C platform, critical in safe shutdowns and accident mitigation for reactors. It can be applied in safety-grade I&C systems such as reactor protection systems, engineered safety feature actuation systems, and post-accident monitoring systems. Contact: CGN, telephone: 86 755- 8443-1555, fax: 86 755-8369-9900, website: http://en.cgnpc.com.cn Refurbishment Framatome completed the refurbishment of 31 reactor coolant pump motors for three southeastern nuclear energy facilities. From 2002 to May 2018, the company modified and upgraded these components, which resulted in a 100 percent reliability and