Technical and regulatory challenges for digital instrumentation and control and control room systems in nuclear plants
- Electric Power Research Inst., 3420 Hillview Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304 (United States)
- Nuclear Energy Inst., 17761 Street NW, Washington, DC 20006 (United States)
There are several unsettled technical and licensing issues in the areas of instrumentation and control (I and C), human factors, and updated control room designs that need coordinated, proactive industry attention. Some of these issues are already causing protracted regulatory reviews for existing plants, and left untreated, may cause substantial delays and increased costs for new plant combined construction and operating license approvals. Both industry and the NRC will have roles in resolving the key issues and addressing them in future design efforts and regulatory reviews. Where action is needed, the industry will want to minimize costs and risks by defining industry consensus solutions with corresponding technical bases. NEI has formed a working group to coordinate industry efforts and communications with NRC staff. The working group will also help determine priorities and coordinate both new and existing plant resources. EPRI will provide technical input and guidance for the working group. In order to be able to conduct reviews in a timely fashion, the NRC will likely need to enhance and expand staff resources as existing plants are upgraded and new plant reviews become more active. The industry initiative began with a workshop sponsored by EPRI and NEI on March 28-29, 2006, which led to the creation of the NEI working group. The working group has now identified and prioritized important generic issues, established resolution paths and schedules, and identified the roles of various stakeholders including utility companies, EPRI, NEI, vendors and the NRC. Through the course of this initiative I and C issues for both existing and new plants are being addressed. This paper describes the key I and C related technical and regulatory issues and their implications for new and operating plants, and provides a status report on the efforts to resolve them. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22030171
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: NPIC and HMIT 2006: 5. International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation Controls, and Human Machine Interface Technology, Albuquerque, NM (United States), 12-16 Nov 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; 12 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 5. International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation Controls, and Human Machine Interface Technology| 1430 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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