Read the Nuclear Industry Spotlight

A publication of Intergraph® Process, Power & Marine
2009
Nuclear Industry
AECL
Chinergy
PBMR
SNC-Lavalin Nuclear
Washington Group
Westinghouse Electric Co.
A Special Focus of
Perspective: Westinghouse Electric Co.
A Resurgence in Commercial Nuclear Power
Westinghouse Electric Co. helps deliver electricity more cleanly, economically
and safely
n By Jill Clelland
The worldwide demand for electricity is growing
at an exponential rate. Over the next decade, it’s
projected by some sources to increase by 2.6 percent per year, from 14,275 billion kilowatt-hours
in 2002 to 21,400 billion kilowatt-hours in 2015.
According to the Uranium Information Centre, Ltd.
in Melbourne, Australia, the demand for primary
energy in East Asia will grow by 5 percent between
now and 2010, while the need for electricity will
increase 7 to 8 percent annually.
In China alone, power generation requirements
are expected by some to almost double from
1994 to 2010, with much of the need being
met by nuclear power generation. According to
China’s State Electricity Regulatory Commission,
more than 120 GW of generating capacity is
currently under construction, but it is likely to
take until next year for generating capacity to
catch up with demand in most areas. Despite this
growth in capacity, blackouts and power rationing
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have become a major issue in many provinces,
particularly during the peak summer demand for
air conditioning.
In the United States, there is a strong concern
about the country’s reliance on foreign oil and the
rising costs of other fuel sources. Nuclear power
generation is emerging as the safe, clean and
cost-effective alternative to more traditional fuel
sources, and Westinghouse Electric Company is
continuing to take a leading role in the industry.
The company is focused on delivering improved
performance, reliability and efficiency with existing and new nuclear energy plants worldwide by
providing fuel, services, technology, plant design
and equipment for the commercial nuclear electric power industry. In addition, Westinghouse is
working with the U.S. government to reduce the
capital costs of new plants so they can be more
competitive in the energy marketplace.
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The company’s technology is the basis for nearly
half of the world’s operating commercial nuclear
power plants, and almost 60 percent of those in the
U.S. Westinghouse’s newest Nuclear Regulatory
Commission design-certified plant offering, the
AP1000, was designed using Intergraph products.
The AP1000 is a pressurized water reactor (PWR)
with innovative, passive safety features and a
much simplified design intended to reduce the
reactor’s material and construction costs while
improving operational safety.
PDS®, along with MicroStation, was used to do
plant 3D modeling. Two-dimensional drawings
are extracted from the 3D model, while Isogen®
is used to create the isometric drawings. Initially,
PDS 2D was used for the P&IDs for the AP600,
predecessor to the AP1000. They were converted
to SmartPlant® P&ID while revising them for
the AP1000. SmartPlant Explorer, a companion
product, is used to review intelligent P&IDs. The
SmartPlant Review suite has been used extensively to review the plant in an integrated fashion,
and also for constructability. The benefits of 3D
visualization don’t have to end with engineering
and construction of a plant. The 3D models and
data generated by visualization tools can be used
as part of training, operations and maintenance,
realizing both cost- and time-saving benefits.
The AP1000 provides a high degree of public
safety and licensing certainty. It draws upon more
than 40 years of experience in light water reactor
components and technology, so no demonstration
plant is required. While clearly advanced in its
application of passive safety features, the AP1000
is still based on the very same Westinghouse PWR
technology that has accumulated thousands of
reactor-years of successful operation internationally since the first PWR went online in Shippingport,
Pennsylvania U.S. in 1957.
The AP1000’s predecessor, the AP600, was
designed with input from more than 30 engineering organizations from around the world.
The AP1000 also had international collaborators.
Previously, the collaboration was performed at each
organization, and integrated into Westinghouse’s
controlling model by manual integration. Since
that time, Intergraph products have become more
capable of workshare and collaboration. They
enable Westinghouse to perform detailed design
work around the world, and the modular design
of the plants allows suppliers to work globally and
have all the pieces fit together when joined at the
plant site.
Certainly the time is right for the U.S. to renew
its focus on nuclear power generation. In fact, a
number of utilities have submitted applications
to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in
preparation for building a plant. The Energy Policy
Act of 2005 focuses on lowering the country’s
foreign and fossil fuel dependence, with many
significant incentives intended to grow the U.S.
nuclear industry.
More and more political, business and environmental leaders are speaking out on the advantages of
nuclear power as the cleaner, cheaper, and yes,
safer power generation alternative. In an article
published April 14, 2006 in The Washington Post,
Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore says,
“Nuclear energy may just be the energy source that
can save our planet from another possible disaster:
catastrophic climate change.” He continues, “More
than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United
States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions –
or nearly 10 percent of global emissions – of CO2,
the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate
change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale,
cost-effective energy source that can reduce these
emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing
demand for power. And these days it can do
so safely.”
In 2001, the nuclear energy industry announced
its goal of preserving the existing percentage of
America’s emission-free electricity, while at the
same time adding new electricity generation.
Vision 2020 specifies having enough new nuclear
power plants either under order, under construction or already built to provide 50,000 MW of
additional electricity-generating capacity to the
U.S. power grid by 2020.
Vision 2020 also calls for the addition of another
10,000 MW capacity of nuclear power by modifying existing plants with more efficient equipment
and more accurate instrumentation so they can
produce more electricity, and by operating current
plants more efficiently so there is less time when
the reactor is not producing full power. Together
with other renewable production, these increases
will maintain the non-emitting percentage of
electricity produced in the U.S. at 30 percent,
continuing to help keep our air clean.
It’s imperative to plan for rather than react to
increases in future energy requirements. The
AP1000 has been confirmed as the technology
base for 10 combined construction and operating
license applications. Among the utility companies
considering expanding their nuclear capabilities are
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South Carolina Electric & Gas (principal subsidiary of
SCANA Corporation), Duke Power, Progress Energy
and the team of Southern Company and Georgia
Power. Late last year, NuStart, the nation’s largest
consortium of nuclear power companies, selected
TVA’s Bellefonte nuclear plant site for a combined
construction and operating license (COL) application for the AP1000.
The AP1000 is ideally suited for the worldwide
nuclear power marketplace. Not only is it the safest,
most advanced design available, but its modular
design promotes ready standardization and high
construction quality. Its 1100 MWe design is ideal
for providing baseload- generating capacity. It’s
economical to construct and maintain because it
requires less concrete and steel and fewer components and systems. It’s designed to promote
ease of operation and features the most advanced
instrumentation and control in the industry.
In the past, the high cost and long-term build-out
schedules for nuclear power plants discouraged
many countries from focusing on this type of
power generation. Westinghouse is addressing both of these issues with the AP600 and
AP1000. By using modular construction methods,
Westinghouse and its project partners will be
able to build the AP1000 in 36 months. This is
one-fourth to one-half the customary construction
time of the most recent U.S. nuclear plants. Using
Intergraph’s SmartPlant Review, Westinghouse
shortened the construction cycle, ensuring the
buildability of the plant as designed and using the
model as an informational tool for both technical
and non-technical audiences.
The price of fossil fuels, pending clean air regulations and increasing concerns about dependence
on foreign oil suppliers will continue to encourage
renewed interest in nuclear power generation.
Taking into consideration that the newest technology allows significant cost reductions in plant
construction, as well as streamlined build-out
time and licensing procedures, nuclear power is
the obvious choice for the future. Westinghouse
is proud to be at the forefront of this exciting
renaissance in nuclear power generation.
Jill Clelland is information management lead
for passive plant development at Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC.
www.westinghousenuclear.com
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Viewpoint: Washington group
A Nuclear Revival
Washington Group International engineers and constructs the coming generation
of nuclear power plants
n By Rod Hunt
As the world searches for more energy to meet
the needs of a growing population and spur
economic development, there is a mounting
interest in what many feel is the cleanest, most
dependable, and efficient source of electrical
generation – nuclear power.
This need for new sources of energy is exacerbated
by what many experts say will be a doubling of
people in the middle class by the year 2020 (middle class is defined as someone who can afford a
home and a car, has clean drinking water, and a
savings account). It is predicted that somewhere
between one billion and 1½ billion people will
emerge into the middle class. Today, fewer than
1½ billion of the world’s 6.3 billion people qualify
as middle class. Most of this upward mobility
will occur in India and China if those countries
continue economically.
Nuclear power has the support and attention of
major industrial countries and their leaders. U.S.
President George Bush and Tony Blair, the prime
minister of Great Britain, have endorsed nuclear
power as the best way to meet the world’s energy
needs and solve environmental problems such as
global warming.
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“How can we meet the demands for new power
if we build the same kind of power plants that we
have built in the past?” asked Blair during a speech
supporting a revival of nuclear power at the World
Economic Forum in Switzerland in 2005.
In this new climate, several public utilities are laying the groundwork to build the first U.S. nuclear
plants in decades, the first of which could be
operating as early as 2015. The first six new plants
will receive major incentives under the recently
enacted Energy Policy Act of 2005, which contains
a number of provisions to boost nuclear power
development. Washington Group International
plans to be a major player in the creation of
these projected plants, which are expected to cost
between $2 billion and $4 billion each.
“The nuclear renaissance provides a significant
opportunity for Washington Group,” said George
Nash, senior vice president – business development of the company’s Power Business Unit.
With so much at stake, many engineering and
construction companies will likely form competitive partnerships to pursue the anticipated
contracts. But Washington Group will have only
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two true competitors for major contracts on these
plants, according to Art Lembo, president of Steam
Generating Team Ltd. (SGT). SGT is a Washington
Group-led joint venture that specializes in the
replacement of large components, such as steam
generators, in nuclear power plants.
“There are few companies with the projectmanagement ability to this scale,” Lembo said.
“The companies that demonstrate that they can
manage the spending for the utilities will be
the victors.”
The largest bidding battles are likely years away,
but it’s safe to say that no company is better
positioned than Washington Group to obtain
these contracts. The company is the engineer
or constructor of record of more megawatts of
total generating capacity than any competitor,
including 29 of the nation’s 103 operating
nuclear units. Washington Group is also one
of only two U.S. companies engaged in the
replacement of major nuclear plant components
such as steam generators.
Perhaps most important to the utility companies,
Washington Group enjoys an excellent reputation
for meeting or beating cost and schedule estimates
on all of its current power plant and nuclear component replacement projects. Utilities also like the fact
that Washington Group has an in-house cadre of
expertise to complete all phases of licensing, design,
engineering and construction. As a result of the
varied project experiences of the company’s combined business units, Washington Group employs
significantly more high-level nuclear experts than
any other engineering and construction company.
Despite the decades-long downturn in the industry,
the company is already fully staffed to design, engineer and build new nuclear power plants.
“One of our differentiators in this marketplace
is, ‘If you start with us, you can finish with us,’”
Nash said. This has been a successful selling point
in other power projects. Utilities like the fact that
Washington Group business units operate as one
company, with seamless transition between project
phases and a demonstrated ability to synergistically leverage the key competencies of each unit.
While the current U.S. administration and Congress
clearly want to create incentives for nuclear
development, unresolved political issues may
still have the potential to slow or halt progress.
The foremost concerns relate to spent nuclear
fuel, which continues to be stored at each plant
site. The waste is neither bulky nor unstable, but
storage solutions must contain the radioactivity for
hundreds of thousands of years. For security and
long-term storage reasons, the NRC had planned
to transfer all spent fuel to a permanent, secure
waste facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, starting in 1998. However, Nevada politicians oppose
the site and the facility remains unfinished and
entangled in political battles that have no clear
timetable for resolution.
Many utilities do not believe the unresolved spent
fuel issue will have the power to delay their proposed new plants, and the Energy Policy Act gives
the DOE only one year to deliver a long-term, highlevel nuclear waste plan to Congress. However, the
utilities’ comfort level could change if the public
does not view current technologies as safe.
“It is also still too early to gauge the true level
of public support for new plants,” said Cynthia
Stinger, Washington Group’s vice president of
government affairs.
Although some polls show nearly 70 percent of the
public supports nuclear power expansion, Stinger
said, “We’re looking at things from the 30,000foot level right now.” She believes the real test will
come when utilities begin to submit formal license
applications for specific locations.
Today’s Americans have been inundated with
images of terrorist attacks and hurricane evacuations, so there is no telling how they will react to
discussion of emergency-evacuation plans in their
own communities as a response to a potential
radioactive release.
“But if consumers are paying $4 or $5 per gallon
of gas, politicians will feel the heat to make things
happen,” said Stinger.
The continued nuclear renaissance also depends
on an essentially perfect safety record at current power plants. An irony of the accident at
the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in
Pennsylvania in 1979 is that the only fallout was
political – the safety systems actually contained the
release of radiation. Stinger said that politicians, if
not the public, are now generally comfortable with
the safety of today’s nuclear plants, which have
multiple redundant safety systems and backups to
ensure that a reactor is kept cool even if primary
and secondary systems fail.
Whenever new reactors are built, they will be in
a new league of safety features. Most important,
these generation IV designs are “passive nuclear
plants,” which are even safer because they require
no electrical systems or pumps to cool the reactor
– only a water supply and gravity.
While Washington Group gears up to create new
nuclear power plants, there is still big business
among the 103 nuclear plants currently operating.
Until about 10 years ago, the conventional wisdom
was that the big money would be in decommissioning and decontaminating the nation’s aging
fleet. Instead, the revenue now comes from keeping those plants running.
“Deregulation made these very valuable economic
assets for the utilities,” said Joseph Ruggiero,
Washington Group’s director of nuclear services. He said the original 40-year operating
licenses for these plants have been upgraded to
60 years in dozens of applications to the NRC.
Nuclear Industry
“There is still a large amount of work available
from the maintenance and upgrade of these
nuclear plants,” he said. Washington Group performs a sizable share of the major engineering and
upgrade work on existing plants. Gross predicts
that both this market and the company’s market
share will escalate.
Lou Pardi, president of the Power Business Unit,
said that Washington Group is pushing for legal
changes that will help the company enter the growing, lucrative overseas nuclear power plant market
as well. Under current international law, should an
accident occur at a foreign nuclear plant that was
engineered or constructed by Washington Group,
the company would have no protection from class
action suits in American courts. Washington Group
belongs to a consortium that is pressing for an
international convention that will provide protections similar to the U.S. Price-Anderson Act.
“The probabilities of an accident are extremely
remote, but the consequences to companies like
ours are very high,” Pardi said. “We don’t want to
get into this market until these issues are resolved.”
Over the long term, nuclear power is far cheaper
to produce per kilowatt than other fuels, but few
utilities can afford to tie up billions of dollars in
capital for a decade before the generators start
running. Utilities in the United States and abroad
still have a high interest in traditional fossil fuel
power plants – particularly coal – and increased
power demands will help the Power Business Unit
continue to grow even if nuclear energy again falls
out of vogue.
“There has historically been a rotation of technologies as one fuel becomes favored above another,”
Nash said. “Our strategy is to be diverse: gas, coal,
hydroelectric and nuclear. We want to do a mix in
services business, new generation, maintenance
and engineering, the upfront assessing of capital
projects, a lot of retrofit, modification and facilities
work. A diverse business is a strong business.”
As energy needs grow throughout the world,
Washington Group will continue to offer a full
spectrum of power and nuclear services. “We’re
keeping our engineering and construction pool as
deep and broad as possible,” Nash said.
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Case study: Chinergy
Powering Up a Growing Nation
Chinergy looks to SmartPlant® Enterprise for fast project design and implementation
n By Jana Miller
The eyes of the world are on China, as the country
begins development of the very first commercial
modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor.
This significant new project is being undertaken
by the Chinese government, which has assigned
the task of building the reactor to Chinergy, a
joint venture of Tsinghua Holding Co. Ltd. and the
state-owned China Nuclear Engineering and
Construction Corporation.
Chinergy has begun the process by selecting
Intergraph’s SmartPlant 3D and SmartPlant
Enterprise software as the core technology for
project design and implementation requirements.
“After an extensive evaluation of all traditional plant
engineering, design and information and materials
management applications, we felt the SmartPlant
Enterprise suite of solutions would provide an
open, modern platform for new systems and the
next generation of plant engineering and design,”
said Frank Wu, CEO of Chinergy. “In addition,
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Intergraph’s experienced technical staff can help
us better use their technology for the maximum
benefit of this project,” he added.
As the most populous nation on earth, China’s
rapid growth and industrialization have fueled
an urgent need for increased power generation.
The Future of Nuclear Power, a study by a blueribbon commission headed by former CIA director
John Deutch, concluded that in less than 50 years,
the country will need nearly as much energy
output as is currently produced worldwide today.
China has relied on fossil fuels and hydro power
to generate nearly all of its energy, but these
two traditional means of creating power are
already inadequate.
“In the emerging economies, particularly China
and India, there will be significant growth. In
fact, there are 25 nuclear plants forecast to be
built in the next five years in China, compared to
only two new plants scheduled to be built in the
next 10 years in the U.S. Chinergy’s selection of
Intergraph’s SmartPlant Enterprise suite validates
our worldwide industry and technology leadership as the premier provider of plant engineering
and design technology. Our company’s longterm investment in our vision for engineering
enterprise technology is helping drive the revolutionary shift in plant design and engineering,
which makes projects like Chinergy’s possible,”
he said.
Gerhard Sallinger, president of Intergraph Process,
Power and Marine, notes that China is experiencing an 8 to 10 percent annual increase in
energy demands, compared to the 2 to 3 percent
demand increase in the Western Hemisphere.
Nuclear power development in mainland China
began in 1970. While coal continues to be the
main energy source in China, most reserves are
in the country’s north or northwest, presenting a
tremendous logistical problem. Most electricity is
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produced from fossil fuels and hydro power. Two
large hydro projects are now under construction:
one at Three Gorges and another at Yellow River.
Nuclear power must be added to the mix in order
to meet demand, especially in the coastal regions
far from the coalfields and in communities where
the economy is rapidly developing.
The China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) is
responsible for planning and managing the
peaceful use of nuclear energy and promoting
international cooperation. The CAEA reviews and
approves feasibility studies for new plants, although
the State Development and Planning Commission
is ultimately responsible for final approval.
According to Wu, nuclear energy is safe, clean,
dependable and stable in cost. “As the country
moves forward, nuclear power will become a
vital source of electricity and will help reduce
China’s dependence on coal, natural gas and
oil to drive its rapid growth and modernization. Currently in China, the pressurized water
reactor is the priority reactor. Plans call for the
high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTR) to
be used to supplement current nuclear power
generation. This will be a significant addition to
the program since the HTR’s absolute quantity is
remarkably large,” he said.
Wu says China’s new HTR-10 (high- temperature
10 megawatt reactor) will revolutionize nuclear
power generation across the globe. The benefits
of the pebble bed modular reactor are many, and
with the opening of the new plant at Weihai
in the Shandong Province in 2012, China will
be the first country to commercially venture into this type of
nuclear technology. The plant
will be owned and operated by
Huaneng Group, one of
China’s largest independent
utilities; China Nuclear Engineering and Construction
Corporation, China’s construction company for the nuclear
island; and Tsinghua University.
fuel rods used in existing nuclear reactors. Instead
of super-heated water, the core is bathed in inert
helium, which can reach much higher temperatures without bursting pipes. No steam means no
pressure dome is required to contain it in case of
a leak.
“First and foremost, this generator will be the safest nuclear power plant ever designed and built,”
said Wu. “The major safety issue regarding nuclear
reactors lies in how to cool them efficiently, as they
continue to produce heat even after shutdown.
Gas-cooled reactors, on the other hand, don’t need
additional safety systems like water-cooled reactors do, and they discharge surplus heat. Using the
existing operating HTR-10 research reactor at the
Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology
of Tsinghua University in Beijing, we have already
done what would be unthinkable in a conventional
reactor – we switched off the helium coolant and
successfully let the reactor cool down by itself,”
said Wu.
Second, the modular design enables the plant
to be assembled much more quickly and costeffectively than traditional nuclear generators.
The modules are manufactured from standardized
components that can be mass-produced, shipped
by road or rail and assembled relatively quickly. The
new plants are smaller, and new modules can be
added as needed. Multiple reactors can be linked
around one or more turbines, all monitored from a
single control room. In other words, the HTR-10’s
design is tailor-made for the world’s fastest growing energy market.
“Regions that are in the process of transforming
from rural to industrial can start small, but add
new modules as the area and its fuel demands
grow,” said Wu. “We can provide them with
modules one at a time, if needed. This makes
start-up costs affordable and the reactors will
be cheaper to operate as they grow, thanks to
economies of scale in everything from staff to
fuel supply,” he said.
The byproduct of the nuclear reactor will be hydrogen, a clean fuel providing alternative, energy
saving options that are less harmful to the environment. According to Wu, the HTR-10 is the only
reactor which can provide a nuclear heat source to
produce hydrogen.
Construction of the $300 million plant should
begin in 2009, with completion targeted for 2012.
This streamlined construction timetable is also a
first for the nuclear power industry, where designing and building generators usually take decades,
rather than years.
Not surprisingly, a number of countries are closely
watching these developments in China. Wu said,
“Many of my colleagues around the world agree
that high-temperature gas-cooled reactors using
pebble fuel offer the most potential for commercially meeting the future environmentally friendly
needs of global power generation.”
Jana Miller is editorial director of Insight.
www.chinergy.com.cn
The HTR-10 is powered by graphite balls about the size of standard
billiards balls packed with tiny
flecks of uranium, rather than
with the conventional white-hot
Nuclear Industry
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Case study: atomic energy of canada limited
AECL Takes “CANDU” Approach to New
Nuclear Technologies
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited chooses SmartPlant Enterprise to complete
projects on time, on budget
n By Ron Oberth
Many companies are developing new and innovative ways to meet the current and future worldwide
demand for electricity. Atomic Energy of Canada
Limited (AECL) is one of those on the cutting edge,
offering new nuclear technologies to safely and
efficiently meet the growing need for power.
AECL is a full service nuclear technology company
providing services to nuclear utilities around the
world. The company works in partnership with
its customers to provide clean, safe, reliable and
affordable energy solutions. AECL provides on-site
expertise, backed by its nuclear science laboratories, testing capability and engineering facilities.
Service from design to decommissioning
AECL is focused on three major lines of business: designing and selling new nuclear reactors,
refurbishing older reactors, and providing services
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to owners of CANDU reactors that help utilities
increase capacity factors, reduce operation and
maintenance costs and shorten outages.
Another more important area of AECL’s business
is to maintain on behalf of the government of
Canada an ongoing research and development
program – designed to maintain and advance
new nuclear technologies, and improve the
understanding of nuclear materials and other
nuclear processes.
CANDU and ACR reactors
AECL’s lead product, and the standard for Canadian
nuclear power reactor designs, is called CANDU, an
acronym for Canada Deuterium Uranium. CANDU
reactors supply about 16 percent of Canada’s electricity and are an important component of clean air
energy programs on four continents. CANDU is a
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unique design that uses natural uranium fuel and
a heavy water moderator.
AECL’s CANDU product line includes the 750 MWe
class CANDU 6 power reactor and the 1200 MWe
class ACR-1000, AECL’s next-generation CANDU
power reactor.
The Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR) has several
key features. Foremost, it is one of the safest
reactors ever designed. It is also a cost-effective
solution to the world’s energy needs and it will
operate efficiently throughout its life cycle.
One of the unique features of CANDU is its
ability to refuel while operating at full power.
This is accomplished by two remotely controlled
fueling machines positioned at opposite ends
of the calandria – one removes the used fuel
bundles, while the other inserts new bundles. This
eliminates the need for refueling outages, and
gives utilities greater flexibility in outage planning,
as well as shorter maintenance outage periods.
productivity significantly while decreasing the
possibility of errors. It also provides a common
database for 3D modeling and P&ID design.
After that, construction takes about six years, so it is
expected the first new nuclear plant could start up in
Ontario within 10 years.
Emphasis on safety
AECL made safety a key element when designing
the CANDU reactor. The many safety systems of
the reactor take into account human error, equipment failure and natural risks such as earthquakes.
In the event that an accident should occur, CANDU
reactors are designed to contain radioactive emissions within the reactor containment structure.
“SmartPlant has allowed AECL to move ahead in
utilization of existing in-house tools while implementing new tool development by Intergraph,”
said Yu. “Most important, this allowed us to reuse
existing PDS data successfully.”
Beyond Canada, AECL sees great opportunities
for growth around the world, particularly in the
U.S., United Kingdom, China and South Korea. The
future certainly looks bright for nuclear power.
Perhaps the most important CANDU safety principle is “defense in depth.” This safety philosophy
involves five main areas: high-quality station
equipment; intensive and ongoing nuclear plant
operator training; fault detection and correction;
independent safety systems; and containment
systems. There has never been an accident in a
CANDU reactor where a worker has received
radiation exposure requiring medical treatment.
Intergraph solution
AECL has used Intergraph modeling tools for
the last 20 years and has successfully delivered
finished products to clients around the world.
The company had several key requirements when it
was recently looking for a 3D solution. The product
had to have an open architecture and an integrated
database for design, analysis, modeling, licensing,
procurement, construction and client turnover. It
had to be an integrated software package that could
meet the needs of a complete plant life cycle. The
company also wanted to see a significant improvement in productivity and quality as a benefit of
the product.
Ken Petrunik, AECL senior vice president, said,
“PDS was instrumental in AECL being on time and
on budget for a recent project in China. We were
very pleased with our results.”
AECL is moving quickly to also take advantage of
SmartPlant Foundation’s advanced data management techniques to better serve clients.
Worldwide nuclear renaissance
While the foundation of AECL’s business is in
Canada, it has built reactors around the world.
There are currently 20 AECL-constructed nuclear
plants in Canada. Two other units have been
recently decommissioned after almost 30 years of
valuable service.
“The world is in the midst of a ‘nuclear renaissance,’” said Petrunik. “Governments are seeing
an unprecedented demand for electricity to power
new economic growth in China, India and many
other countries.”
New nuclear generators are being considered in
Ontario to help meet the rising power demand. It
is estimated it will take three to four years to secure
the needed licensing and environmental approvals.
Ron Oberth is director of marketing operations
at AECL.
www.aecl.ca
Unique Features of the AECL
CANDU Reactor
n
On-power refueling
n
Simple fuel bundle design
n
L ow-pressure, low-temperature heavy
water moderator separated from the
reactor coolant system
n
Fully-automated plant control
n
Fuel cycle flexibility
n
Standardized key components
n
Short construction schedule
n
3D CAD model-assisted design
n
T wo independent, fast-acting safety
shutdown systems
“We looked at many competitive products, but
ultimately chose SmartPlant Enterprise, particularly SmartPlant 3D, because no other enterprise
system provided us the productivity gains possible
with the Intergraph tools,” said Stephen Yu, AECL
general manager, ACR product development.
Yu added that the integrated yet modular approach that Intergraph chose with
SmartPlant Enterprise fit AECL’s ACR-1000
product engineering and project delivery strategy and the company’s long-term vision in the
nuclear market.
By utilizing a common data-centric “foundation,”
AECL can manage data centrally – increasing
Nuclear Industry
Insight
9
SECTION TITLE GOES HERE
Case study: PBMR
Bringing It All Together
PBMR takes advantage of data integration to speed construction of next-generation
nuclear plants
n By Pat Thomson
In 1994, two events of global significance occurred
in South Africa. The first was the successful completion of the country’s first democratic election. The
second was the project development launch of the
Pebble Bed Modular Nuclear Reactor (PBMR) by
Eskom, one of the top 10 utilities in the world. The
South Africa power utility giant had concluded that
PBMR technology showed considerable technical
and commercial merit for future energy demands
in South Africa, as well as throughout the world.
In 1999, Eskom joined with the Industrial
Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC),
British Nuclear Fuels and the U.S. utility Exelon
to create PBMR (Pty) Ltd. to build and market
PBMR-based power plants. (Later, Exelon withdrew from PBMR to focus on its core business
of power generation plant operations and power
sales brokerage.) The new company completed a
feasibility study which showed the PBMR technology was viable and that pebble bed modular
reactors represented one of the most viable and
10
Insight
cost-effective means for increasing South Africa’s
power generation.
Consistent power supply
“The beauty of the PBMR technology is that it has
intrinsically safe features. It cannot suffer a meltdown,” said Juan le Roex, power plant division
software systems manager for PBMR. “The nuclear
plant is easy to operate and you can regulate
the power output. You couldn’t do that with the
conventional reactors, which needed to run at 100
percent all the time. Also, the pebble bed design
allows us to refuel the plant without shutting it
down, which represents enormous cost savings.
For example, Koeberg, the nuclear plant near Cape
Town, has to be shut down for about 100 days
each 18 months for refueling purposes.”
It is already evident that South Africa has to add
electricity generation capacity since the country’s
peak demand is starting to exceed capacity,
especially during peak hours. Today, almost 90
percent of the country’s electricity is generated
Insight: Special Focus
by coal-fired power stations, with the Koeberg
nuclear plant providing an additional five percent
of the country’s needs. The remaining five percent
is generated by hydroelectric and pumped storage
means. PBMR’s feasibility study demonstrated
that there are few, if any, new hydroelectric sites
in South Africa that could be developed to deliver
significant amounts of power, and the country’s
natural gas resources are too limited to qualify as
a viable power generation option.
Moving forward, Eskom wants to reduce the country’s dependence on coal from 90 to 70 percent of
supply. In 2005, South Africa declared the PBMR
project a National Strategic Project, demonstrating the importance of the PBMR development to
South Africa’s future.
Unifying disciplines
PBMR executives strongly believe the pebble bed
technology will be of great benefit to countries
around the world, so the company is working
to design and build a demonstration plant at
Koeberg to serve as a launch platform for local
and international sales. At the same time, they are
developing an associated fuel plant at Pelindaba
near Pretoria. Once the technology is ready to be
implemented, Eskom will be PBMR’s first customer.
PBMR is on schedule to begin construction on
the demonstration plant.
“As our team of PBMR staff and contractors finalizes the design for the plant, we have what I call
‘islands’ of information,” said le Roex. “Intergraph’s
SmartPlant Enterprise is providing us with a wellstructured integration to bring all the disciplines
together. It unifies the design process and provides
us with an interface for the procurement and construction processes, as well as helping us manage
and control data on the construction site,” he said.
Innovative design
The reactor offers a sustainable energy source with
an inherent capacity for safety. It can be either
dry- or water-cooled, so it doesn’t have to be
sited near water. This new design can be built in
a much shorter timeframe than traditional nuclear
plants and its modular design allows for a close
match of demand and supply through expansion
planning. The design follows U.S. rules, standards
and regulations as far as they apply to this technology to facilitate a seamless application process
for building PBMRs internationally.
“We’re already pursuing the process of engaging
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC),
the American regulatory authority, to reach
an agreement for the formal application of
design certification,” said le Roex. “Once you’ve
got American certification, it makes it much easier
to gain certification in other countries, which will
significantly expedite our international sales,”
he explained.
PBMR fuel is based on a proven high-quality
German fuel design consisting of low-enriched uranium triple-coated isotropic particles contained in
a molded graphite sphere (the “pebble”). Because
South Africa boasts the world’s largest gold mining
industry, it holds abundant reserves of uranium, a
byproduct of gold production. This will enable the
country to support its nuclear power plants globally and to sell nuclear fuel manufactured locally.
Very little nuclear material remains in each spent
fuel sphere, which makes it extremely proliferationresistant. The pebbles do not require an expensive
waste disposal site and can be readily buried in
any geologically stable formation.
The PBMR modular concept gives utility clients
flexibility in choosing the configuration that best
matches their needs. The power plant design can be
configured in two-, four- or eight-module arrangements, greatly reducing the capital required for
installation. Units can be brought online at a rate
that best matches the electricity demand growth
of a region, saving millions of dollars in start-up
costs. The modules can be added on without any
interruption in current power generation.
Because it’s small in size compared to traditional
nuclear reactors and requires a smaller safety perimeter, the PBMR can be built in close proximity
to the community it serves, eliminating the
need and cost of thousands of miles of hightransmission cables.
Planning for the future
Alec Erwin, South Africa’s minister of public enterprises, has stated an intent to eventually produce
between 4,000 to 5,000 MW of power from pebble
bed reactors in South Africa. This equates to between 20 and 30 plants of 165 MW each. Erwin
said the PBMR would place the country at the
forefront of energy technology. “The project is now
factored into our future energy planning, and we
are negotiating a major intention-to-purchase
agreement between Eskom and PBMR,” he said.
As a further endorsement of the project, Westinghouse, one of the world’s leading nuclear power
companies, has become a PBMR shareholder,
replacing the 15 percent interest previously held
by British Nuclear Fuels.
Le Roex explained that South Africa’s pebble bed
demonstration reactor project will take place in
three phases. First, PBMR will obtain regulatory
approvals (environmental impact assessment and
licensing) to begin construction. Next, they will
load the fuel, and finally, the client (Eskom) will
operate the plant.
“At the moment, we have drafted the safety case
for construction and are reviewing and revising
it with Eskom. It will soon be submitted to the
National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) here in South
Africa for approval,” said le Roex.
Nuclear Industry
SmartPlant integrated workflow
Intergraph’s SmartPlant Enterprise is playing a key
role in the plant’s design and licensing stage.
“We’re actually doing a full-house Intergraph
implementation,” said le Roex. “The main power
system – the reactor vessel, turbines and all the
major parts that carry the helium between the
turbine and the reactor – are being designed in
Unigraphics. And then out of that, we’re driving the
equipment 3D models into SmartPlant 3D. That’s
where design comes together with electrical – and
the 3D integration with electrical, P&ID, instrumentation and all of the other engineering disciplines –
to control and produce the production drawings
and specifications,” he said.
“Because we’re operating in an integrated design
environment,” he continued, “we’ve eliminated
a huge amount of work duplication, data transfer
and all associated configuration management.
Intergraph provided an enormous amount of technical expertise and support by flying out a team
of professionals from all over the world to conduct
a week-long initial workshop. Our staff is currently being trained in SmartPlant P&ID, SmartPlant 3D,
SmartPlant Foundation, SmartPlant Materials
and advanced administration,” he said.
PBMR has created an implementation team made
up of smaller staff units. The sub-groups are responsible for 3D Design, Product Data Management,
P&ID Design, Instrumentation and Electrical and
Project Management.
“The bottom line for us is that I don’t know how
anyone can deliver a complex project like this one
effectively without using something like the
SmartPlant Enterprise suite. We are happy to
collaborate with other organizations on best practices and how we have made use of Intergraph’s
technology to achieve our goals,” said le Roex.
“If you look at the return on investment over the
life cycle of the project and all the time we’ve saved
using Intergraph software, you’re looking at a very
large number. I estimate our savings outweigh the
costs by 10 to 1. At the end of the day, we at PBMR
hope to become a model Intergraph site.”
Pat Thomson is managing director of Intergraph
Systems Southern Africa (ISSA), an Intergraph
distributor.
www.pbmr.com
Insight
11
SECTION TITLE GOES HERE
Case study: PBMR and SNC-Lavalin Nuclear
SmartPlant Enterprise: The Right Solution
for Nuclear Power Plants
Data-driven, integrated and rule-based environment is vital for next generation
complex nuclear power plant projects
n By Wayne Smith
The nuclear power industry is one of the most
regulated industries in the world. Traceability
of all data and documents that are generated
during the plant life cycle is fundamental in the
nuclear industry.
Data pass through various phases of the product
and plant life cycle, beginning from design concept, basic engineering/FEED to detail design,
procurement, construction, licensing support, precommissioning and commissioning, operations,
refurbishment and decommissioning. For this
reason, it is imperative that information integrity
is ensured throughout a plant’s life cycle reflecting
the design basis.
Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) was seeking a technology enabler to assist with the
engineering and management of plant data. The
technology enabler would allow PBMR to hand
over an integrated data model of the entire plant
to the owner operator ESKOM, one of the world’s
largest utilities.
12
Insight
Established in 1999, the PBMR organization
intends to develop and market small-scale, hightemperature reactors both regionally and internationally. The 700-member PBMR team is based in
Centurion, near Pretoria in South Africa.
SNC-Lavalin Nuclear (SLN) has nearly 50 years
of experience in the design and construction
of nuclear power plants around the world that
includes project management and plant life cycle
support experience. While assisting in other areas,
SLN is primarily involved with the engineering,
procurement, construction and management as
an EPCM subcontractor for the PBMR demonstration power plant at Koeberg, near Cape Town in
South Africa.
The PBMR plant design has undergone development since 1993. The plant is scheduled to begin
construction in 2010, with the first fuel to be
loaded four years later in 2014.
Insight: Special Focus
Comprehensive solution
Together with SNC-Lavalin Nuclear, PBMR’s
plant and product realization and engineering
groups have implemented Intergraph’s SmartPlant
Enterprise suite as the engineering solution for
the PBMR demonstration power plant to be
constructed at Koeberg. PBMR is focused on using
SmartPlant Foundation’s infrastructure and centralized repository for maintaining all plant data
and documents.
“PBMR is a complex and first-of-a-kind project,”
said Aaron Bukhari, a consultant to PBMR and
the chief information officer at SLN. “Our primary
reasons for looking at the Intergraph products were
traceability within a data-driven and integrated
environment that will enable PBMR to deliver a
plant with all intelligent data and documents.”
Bukhari confirmed that SNC-Lavalin Nuclear has
used Intergraph technologies from the early days
of PDS to the current SmartPlant Enterprise suite.
He noted that the savings in man-hours and
engineering effort using SmartPlant Enterprise will
be dramatic over the course of a plant’s life cycle.
to choose Intergraph for its advanced technology
nuclear power plant design.
“When the owner operator chooses SmartPlant
Enterprise, the plant data handover can be an
integrated process that should reduce the overall
plant operating cost,” he said. “Using Intergraph
tools enables concurrent engineering from multiple
locations that translates into significant efficiency
and dramatic savings.”
One of the immediate benefits to PBMR involves
data and document organization. SmartPlant
Foundation enables the creation of data fields
which can be assembled into documents and
presented in reports.
With basic engineering (PFDs and P&IDs, including
mechanical datasheets) enabled by SmartPlant
P&ID and AspenTech Zyqad™ PFD software,
these tools can integrate and share information
through SmartPlant Foundation.
The ongoing task involves the creation of reference and model data to be used when and
where required. For example, five complete line
specifications were created within five days using
the SmartPlant Reference Data tool. Typically,
this would require weeks of painstaking work. A
significant time and cost savings was realized by
capitalizing the standard ASME piping database
add-on.
SmartPlant Electrical and SmartPlant Instrumentation also contribute toward an integrated environment. SmartPlant 3D plays a pivotal role by
maintaining the repository of the master model
for all phases of the plant life cycle.
SmartPlant Enterprise’s integrated, data-driven
environment is helping PBMR to manage data
such as the life cycle of tags, datasheets and
workflows, and to integrate data from third party
tools such as AspenTech and Tekla. Meanwhile,
the constructability team is busy combining data
from various sources such as scheduling and
SmartPlant 3D tools into SmartPlant Review.
Award-winning efforts
At the Intergraph 2007 International Users
Conference, PBMR received one of Intergraph’s
inaugural Icon Awards for using SmartPlant
Enterprise solutions to integrate the plant life
cycle environment for its next generation reactor
design. The award is Intergraph’s highest customer
distinction for product innovation, partnership and
proven results.
Bukhari remarked that the vision behind SmartPlant
Enterprise was a major factor in PBMR’s decision
SmartPlant Enterprise enables a complete data
set to be provided, while reflecting any changes.
“Traceability is one of the key capabilities we
were looking for in the product, to ensure that
everything is captured and nothing will be lost.
SmartPlant Enterprise’s traceability, control and
workflow management are among our greatest
assets,” said Bukhari.
Implementation
After PBMR chose the Intergraph solution, the
software was implemented through a combined
effort by the PBMR product realization software
team, the PBMR engineering software team and
SLN’s plant systems team, with support provided
by Intergraph team members and partners in
South Africa, Europe and the U.S.
Reduced cost is another key benefit of SmartPlant
Enterprise for this unique project. “There is no
other product that can reasonably cover all the
cost areas of construction, operability and maintainability, and provide a cost benefit,” Bukhari
said. “The Intergraph solution can deliver this cost
benefit over the long-term.”
Employing Intergraph’s SmartPlant Enterprise
suite of tools will significantly reduce the time it
takes for PBMR to bring reactors to market and to
deliver plants to owners and operators complete
with all data and maintenance information.
PMBR considers its relationship with Intergraph a
true success story, as it implements its next generation nuclear plant technology.
“A broken process results in broken technology,”
said Anton Kotzé, the product realization software
systems manager at PBMR. “We work very hard
to recreate our business processes, workflows and
procedures, and to encourage EPC managers to
embrace an integrated mindset for working with
the fourth generation of engineering. SmartPlant
Enterprise is very pivotal to solidify this integrated
mindset with the associated work methods.”
Nuclear Industry
“We know that to develop an architecture and
environment for distributed engineering, we want
everyone to draw from the same centralized databases,” Bukhari said. “From this viewpoint, we
envision that use of the SmartPlant Foundation
repository will increase even more.”
From beginning to end
PBMR’s vision is for a technology that covers the
entire life cycle of a nuclear plant, beginning with
conceptual engineering and continuing through
to operation and eventual decommissioning.
Intergraph’s market-leading technology supports
plant life cycle effort. According to Kotzé, PBMR
will continue to expand its use of SmartPlant
Enterprise as more products are designed and
developed.
“PBMR believes that Intergraph’s product range
supports its vision and strategy 100 percent,”
Kotzé said. “This is confirmed by the products we
see coming from Intergraph and through much
discussion of this topic.”
“A successful roll-out of any plant life cycle
information management system, from design
to decommissioning, requires business processcentric operations – policies, procedures, work
instructions, workflows, reports, specifications,
catalogs, rules and processes – along with a stable
technology base,” said Bukhari.
“These are exciting times when vendors such
as Intergraph can deliver a vision and align their
products with business requirements for the plant
life cycle.”
Both Bukhari and Kotzé see SmartPlant Enterprise
leading the way into a new dimension of what
they call the “ERP of engineering.”
Wayne Smith is a contributing editor for Insight
based in Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.
www.pbmr.co.za
www.snclavalin.com
www.slnuclear.com
Insight
13
SmartPlant® 3D –
Increase productivity with
application and data interoperability
Make the most of your enterprise engineering
design data investment. Support integrated
plant modeling and design from concept to
operations and maintenance.
Intergraph® SmartPlant 3D is an open, datacentric, multi-discipline plant design solution
proven to increase productivity with streamlined
modeling workflows.
EPCs and O/Os from around the world rely on
Intergraph’s integrated plant design
environment for real business benefits:
Engineering rules-based design
Complete projects more quickly, more accurately,
at less cost. Benefit from seamless integration
between modeling, analysis, reporting, and fully
automated drawing production tasks with
engineering rules-based design.
Global worksharing
Enhance multi-site, concurrent engineering and
data sharing of the evolving 3D plant design
with industry-standard worksharing.
Automate the plant design process
Capture engineering knowledge and expertise as
part of SmartPlant 3D’s integrated automations.
www.intergraph.com/power
Boost interoperability
Intergraph, the Intergraph logo, and SmartPlant are registered trademarks of
Intergraph Corporation. ©2009 Intergraph Corporation. 04/09 PPM-US-0069A-ENG