Lynchburg Business

AREVA’s New Digital Safety System Draws Accolades

Issue: January 2012 by Dominique McKay in Inside The Magazine, Technology

AREVA’s latest installation of a new digital safety system for nuclear plants, TELEPERM XS, is not only showcasing how far technology has come in recent years, but also changing our culture and the way we look at nuclear safety.

As digital technology rapidly advances in today’s world, AREVA has worked to bring their clients into the next generation, expanding the life expectancy of their nuclear plants while keeping safety at the forefront of their digital upgrades.

Many nuclear plants were designed back in the 1960s and 1970s, said George Beam, senior-vice president of AREVA’s TELEPERM XS. The plants were built with the analog technology that existed then, allowing them to operate for up to 40 years. But with recent advancement in digital technology, life expectancy of nuclear plants has increased up to 60 years.

“As young engineers started coming out of school and companies moved onto the next generation of technology, the ability to maintain, fix and operate the analog technology began to evaporate. So we’ve been blessed,” Beam said.

As today’s society advances with its prolific digital use of Kindles, iPads and smart phones, the nuclear plants have also moved along with advances of their own in digital technology. But never before has that digital technology been placed into the type of safety system AREVA’s TELEPERM XS provides.

“The issue was to put it in a safety system that would be responsible for shutting the reaction down in the event of an unplanned transient. That is where everyone was concerned and lots of analysis and engineering reviews came into play,” Beam said.

AREVA was the first to successfully license this type of new technology. AREVA’s TELEPERM XS now enables nuclear reactors to be shut down automatically at the first sign of trauma.

“It’s almost the equivalent of having your knee or hip replaced with newer technology, but this is the brains for how you shut down a reactor in the event there is a transient or something outside of the normal mode of operation,” Beam said.

The project began back in 2002 when one of AREVA’s clients approached the company with the idea of extending the life of their nuclear plant. As a part of this upgrade, an investment in a newer digital safety system was essential. The project got quickly underway before running into a few complications.

“One of the key challenges was getting people to be open to the new technology. For a lot of people, if it’s working now—why change?” Beam said. “It was a real evolutionary concept to get people to buy in … it was more than filling out forms, it was changing the culture.”

Now that the system is up and running well, Beam believes a majority of plants will take advantage of the lessons learned through this system and will begin making plans to enhance and upgrade their own technologies.

“We’ve broken this ice with the regulators and with the customers, so it’s good for the whole industry,” Beam said.

As the first system of its kind, AREVA’s TELEPERM XS recently won the “Engineering Project of the Year” award at the 13th annual Platts Global Energy Awards in New York. Established in 1999, the Platts Global Energy Awards showcases extraordinary accomplishments by businesses and individuals around the world.

“It’s truly been a global project. It was a nice recognition for AREVA, for me personally and for Lynchburg, but it really does represent the whole gamut of what this company can provide,” he said.

Beam now hopes to be able to take the experience with this system and begin to implement it into many of the other nuclear plants around America, showing those companies that this advancement is worth the investment.

“The key issue is going to be that some plants believe they can still operate their safety systems using the old analog technology because it’s a significant cost—multi-million dollars—to put in one of these systems,” he said.

As the cost is a key factor for many, some companies will be able find that balance by changing out and upgrading bits and pieces of their system rather than the entire system at once. But Beam said, in order to enhance safety, this type of digital upgrade will be necessary.

For more information about what AREVA is doing around the world, visit www.areva.com.