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DOE OSTI2023

Advancements in Development and Testing of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulators

Flexible plant operations and generation (FPOG) offer nuclear power plants (NPPs) the chance to leverage alternative, non-electric revenue streams while ensuring their continued role as reliable, clean, and constant sources of baseload electrical power. The excess thermal energy generated from NPPs during periods of low electricity demand can be channeled as raw materials to numerous industrial processes via a thermal power dispatch (TPD) system. Hydrogen production via high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) is an optimal use case based on technical and economic feasibility. Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have conducted previous works that developed and implemented TPD system models within the GSE Solutions Generic Pressurized Water Reactor (GPWR) simulator to support human-in-the-loop (HITL) scenario-based evaluations. The first part of this report documents modifications made to the GPWR TPD model and HMI from the previous iteration in line with a new Sargent and Lundy (S&L) TPD design with an automatic control system. The was done in collaboration with Westinghouse using their three-loop pressurizer water reactor (W3LPWR) simulator which contains an industrial grade automatic control system for the TPD. This was installed in the Human Systems Simulation Laboratory (HSSL) at INL. The second part of the report documents findings from an all-hands-on-deck integration and verification workshop that was conducted in the HSSL over several days. The research team comprised INL human factors and TPD experts, a nuclear engineer from GSE Solutions who implemented the revised TPD model for GPWR, the human-machine interface (HMI) prototyping and human factors team from the University of Idaho, and personnel with operations experience with pressurized water reactors. The workshop provided time and expertise to conduct the final activities to bring the operations, HMI, and simulator into a functional state. The goals of the integration and verification workshop were: 1. to install the revised GPWR TPD model into the HSSL 2. verify the TPD HMI prototype was functional 3. integrate the HTSE Simulink model to GPWR. 3. Issues were identified for resolution, but overall the workshop accomplished its goal to integrated and verify the majority of the intended functional. Future work will resolve the identified issues and use the integrated simulation to support an evaluation and demonstration in the next fiscal year.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2021

Development and Demonstration of a Reduced-Order PWR Power Dispatch Simulator

This report describes the development, modeling, and results of a reduced-order thermal power dispatch pressurized water reactor (RO-TPD-PWR) power plant simulator that incorporates coupled electrical and thermal power dispatch to an industrial process. The simulator is built on models that have been developed in previous work, including a Rancor Microworld model previously developed by INL and the University of Idaho [Ref] and reactor core and secondary system models that have been published previously [Ref]. The simulator also includes a scalable model of a high temperature electrolysis (HTE) system that has been developed at INL. A particular benefit of the Rancor Microworld model is that it is compatible with a human-system interface (HMI) that has already been developed by the Human System Simulation Laboratory (HSSL) at INL that can emulate the control room of a PWR for realistic human-in-the-loop studies with mock nuclear power plant operating procedures. The results of these human-in-the-loop tests will be compared with similar tests using a commercial full-scope generic PWR (GPWR) simulator that has been modified to include thermal power dispatch, referred to as the TPD-GPWR [ , ]. The simplicity of the RO-TPD-PWR helps to better understand and verify the results of the TPD-GPWR, which employs >1,000 variables and has much greater complexity. A second key purpose of the RO-TPD-PWR simulator is that its relative simplicity allows it scale between lab-size equipment (~100 kW) and full-scale nuclear power plants (~1 GW) by adjusting only a few parameters in the models, such as fluid masses and heat exchanger areas. The RO-TPD-PWR simulator will be used to guide the controls of lab tests, so that equipment in those tests, such as the Thermal Energy Distribution System (TEDS) and pilot-scale high temperature electrolysis (HTE) units at scales of 50-250 kW, may operate in a manner that is relevant to full-scale PWR operations.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗