Determining and managing long-term costs and reliability with life cycle management plans for a nuclear operation in the south

Background

A large utility in the south operates a fleet of three nuclear plants that were facing uncertain future investment requirements. The company’s management was challenged by the organization’s limitations in planning for major projects beyond a one-year horizon.

Knowing that they were facing long-term maintenance, reliability and cost issues, a more comprehensive approach using life cycle management plans (LCM) was needed. The company decided to develop LCM plans for key plant systems across the nuclear fleet and chose MCR to help.

Solution

MCR worked with our client’s engineering staff to identify key plant systems to develop LCM plans. We conducted extensive external research using industry reliability data, operating experience, NRC documents and equipment vendor sources to identify potential LCM issues. Using internal research, we analyzed data from the client’s work management system to identify additional LCM issues specific to the plants.

The results of the research allowed us to identify reliability issues with higher risk components, and these became the basis for recommendations around future maintenance. The existing and recommended maintenance initiatives were consolidated to produce a comprehensive document and project plan for each system with scope, schedule and cost to end of plant life.

Results

The project provided our client with documentation of the analysis approach and results. The resulting LCM plans included end of life work plans and funding requirements for each system. Implementation of the LCM plans will help our client attain safety and reliability objectives while optimizing expense and capital investments.