Improved efficiencies reduce cost of ownership for state-of-the-art safety system
As more and more nuclear plants begin to seek license renewals they are met with many challenges – including rising operating costs and difficulty finding employees with analog experience. Modernization of the nuclear fleet not only addresses these difficulties but improves plant performance, especially for the ever-crucial instrumentation and control (I&C) safety system. Heavy regulations and upfront costs have been barriers on the path to safety system upgrades, but new advancements are helping to remove those barriers and clear the way for modernized platforms.
One such advancement is the optimization of our Common Q™ Safety System. Decades of reliable operating experience combined with ongoing investments and improvements into the technology have provided the NRC with the confidence to approve a Safety Evaluation Report (SER) to eliminate surveillance testing of the system. The elimination of surveillance testing reduces ongoing system maintenance costs required for analog systems, ultimately reducing the total cost of ownership of the system.
With this regulatory milestone, we are now the first nuclear services provider with a safety system platform SER that allows utilities to fully eliminate surveillance testing, including periodic response time testing in the upgrade license amendment request.
WCAP-18461, “Common Q Platform and Component Interface Module System – Elimination of Technical Specification Surveillance Requirements” is a companion WCAP to the Common Q Platform Topical Report – “Common Qualified Platform Topical Report” WCAP-16097-P-A” to justify the elimination of surveillance testing.
