Improving the availability of emergency power supply in nuclear power plant

Abstract EN

The improvement of emergency power supply availability in nuclear power plant (NPP) was studied by utilizing the stored energy in the turbogenerator system, during its run-down to supply the safety loads during the power-off period following the loss of offsite power, due to a nuclear reactor fault, which requires immediate reactor shut down and as a consequence turbine/generator shut down.

A computer model to simulate the electric power system in the NPP has been developed.

The dynamic response of the system was analyzed and results have shown that the stored energy could successfully supply the safety loads of the NPP for a period of about 20 seconds before diesel generator start-up, without considerable deviation from their rated values.

This in turn will improve the availability of the emergency power supply.

The information provided in this paper should be of great interest to electric utility planners and operators and turbine/generator manufacturers.