Report on Internship Project: Risk-Informed Cost Reduction in Nuclear Power Plants
Several Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) in USA are facing premature closures due to financial difficulties. A significant contributing factor in the NPP electricity generation cost is Operational and Maintenance (O&M) cost. This research aims to reduce O&M cost by developing a framework which creates flexibility in NPP maintenance program. This framework relies on FLEX portable equipment to reduce NPP risk and to substitute and/or backup fixed equipment in different NPP operation modes. Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) methodology is used to quantify the change of plant risk to justify the framework's applicability. The framework enables plant managers to shift maintenance workload from refueling outage period into online maintenance programs. As a result, it is expected to increase NPP capacity factor while also reducing the risk of unexpected outage. These results are expected to increase NPP electricity generation revenue and decrease O&M costs while complying to existing nuclear safety regulations.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1967351
- Report Number(s):
- INL/EXT-18-51036-Rev000
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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