Certified process data reconciliation

Quality-assured asssessment of current/recent plant condition incl. recommendations for optimal operation

The goal of a ProcessPLUS ® Status Report is generating a snap-shot of a current or past plant process state which is of interest to the plant operator. The ProcessPLUS ® Status Report delivers, amongst others, indications for: 
• Potential for ”lost megawatts“ (deviation from the design/licensed state)
• Potential for power uprate based on minimized uncertainties (MUR – measurement uncertainty recapture)
• Exact determination of thermal reactor power
• Indication of measurement drifts, leakages and erroneous measurements within the defined time interval

REQUIRED DATA AND DOCUMENTATION
• Heat balance sheets at approx. 100 % load
• Piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID) for allocation of measuring points in the model
• List of all measuring points from the process computer
• Plant characteristics (generator load over condenser pressure)
• Operating data or one-hour averages at 100 % load over 4 weeks 

Continuous correction of feedwater flow measurements for the recovery of lost MW to licensed thermal core power level

Situation
It is possible that a nuclear power plant is operating below its licensed thermal core power (TCP) limit. In this case, the delta between actual and licensed TCP is called “lost MW“ or “power recovery potential“ and can cause lost revenue of multiple million $/year.

Approach
ProcessPLUS® continuously identifies this power recovery potential (see green circle above). In case of a systematic deviation, nuclear power plants can apply reconciled correction factors generated by ProcessPLUS® to correct the official TCP input parameters such as feedwater massflow or feed water temperature.
These input parameters temperature measurement can be erroneous (e.g. due to fouling) and cause the TCP to either be calculated too low (causing plant control in a non-conservative direction) or too high (conservative direction) causing th eplant to either underpower (95% of cases) or overpower.
The correction with ProcessPLUS® correction factors is recommended for both cases, either to realize the power recovery potental ar to increase safety.
The power recovery potential can easily be identified by first performing a ProcessPLUS® Status Report. 

Increase of thermal reactor power of up to 20% of the original reactor power in a nuclear power plant.

The extended uprate increase is a process that can only be initiated and realized with government agency approval and requires certain technical and safety related qualifications from the plant operator. Nuclear power plants are designed to produce a certain thermal reactor power (100 %). All components, control values and measurement calibrations relate to this design point. Such a substantial increase of thermal power (up to 20 %) causes changes in process behavior. One example for such a change are Reynolds numbers. When operating above the design point, the Reynolds numbers become too high for the measurement of feed water flow and thus need to be extrapolated in a conventional way. Furthermore, assumptions are made about the uncertainties of the Reynolds numbers. These assumptions do not reflect reality. ProcessPLUS ® Extended Uprate is an applicartion enables the plant operator to determine process values and the respective uncertainties which are difficult or impossible to measure at operating levels above the design point. The advantage of this approach is increased plant safety and improved acceptance with the responsible authorities.

BTB JANSKY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES:
• Support in receiving agency approval
• Supply of reconciled values to the process computer

PROJECT TIME LINE
The performance of a ProcessPLUS ^® Extended Uprate requires an installed ProcessPLUS ^® Online System. Experience shows that the predominant part of the project duration for the realization of a ProcessPLUS ^® Extended Uprate is taken up by receiving agency approval. The total project time can be estimated – depending on the state of the agency approval procedures – to be 1 to 1.5 years.
In the past BTB Jansky has successfully implemented several online versions of their data reconciliation system both in nuclear and fossil power plants. The installation of additional measuring points is not required.

Uprate of licensed power by 0.5 – 1.5% without installation of new hardware

Originally, the MUR program was established by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in order to allow power uprates based on minimized measurement uncertainties (MUR – Measurement Uncertainty Recapture). 

The goal of performing a ProcessPLUS ® MUR is minimizing measurement uncertainties at the feed water mass flow measurement which is the relevant parameter for the determination of thermal reactor power in a nuclear power plant. The minimization of uncertainties enables the operator – after receiving approval from the responsible government agency – to increase thermal reactor power and at the same time maintain a safety margin to the emergency cooling limit value of 102 % of thermal reactor power.

In this process, BTB Jansky is responsible for the following activities:
• Modeling of plant processes
• Installation of the ProcessPLUS ® system
• Support in receiving nuclear authority approval
• Supply of correction factors based on reconciled values in order to recalculate thermal reactor power 

The advantages of this methodology compared to currently used methods in performing MUR (e.g. installation of ultra-sonic flow meters) are:
• Avoid recurrent calibration measures
• Minimize systematic and random errors resulting in minimized uncertainty
• Avoid high cost for hardware, installation, plant down-time and maintenance 

Quality-assured asssessment of plant retrofit projects including VDI2048 certified delta analysis

APPROACH
• BTB Jansky generates a plant model and maps plant process conditions before and after retrofit.
• ProcessPLUS ® Acceptance Test is performed remotely at BTB Jansky offices. Process data is analyzed off site.
• Process modeling is usually done 3-4 weeks prior to retrofit. After receiving the pre-retrofit process data the reconciliation of data is performed and results are presented.
• The final results of the delta analysis in the course of a ProcessPLUS ® Acceptance Test are available after receiving the post-retrofit process data. One week later, the official acceptance test report is delivered. 

ADVANTAGES
• Data reconciliation with ProcessPLUS ® minimizes the uncertainties of process values and therefore yields the most precise process values possible in the mathematical-statistical and thermodynamic sense.
• ProcessPLUS ® Acceptance Test yields results with a higher precision than customary industry acceptance tests.
• ProcessPLUS ® Acceptance Test was performed for numerous retrofits at various nuclear power plant sites.
• ProcessPLUS ®Acceptance Test is accepted by utilities and component suppliers. 

High-quality short and long term prognosis for power sales and trading

Why ProcessPLUS® Prognosis?
• Better sales and operation planning using long term prognosis
• Generate important information for the power grid operator using short term prognosis 

Current situation
• Mostly rudimentary forecasts available (monthly average values taken directly from historical data)
• Current plant conditions and local weather influences are disregarded
• Forecast mostly done “by hand” 

Real-time financial and ecological optimization of power plant cooling

ProcessPLUS® Cooling Water Optimization
Optimization of plant cooling modes fresh water/cooling tower cooling under the following conditions:
• Verification based on actual, reconiled plant data
• Consideration of a possible local water extraction fee
• Possible stretch-out operation mode
• Investigation of a possible reduction of condenser throughput
• Taking into account power consumtion of cooling tower and cooling water pumps
• Optimization of the amount of power to be sold to the market

Features of the ProcessPLUS® Cooling Water Optimization application
• Automatic import of ambient conditions, river water level forecasts and current electricity prices from the power exchange 

Display of:
• Optimal operation/cooling mode
• Main cooling water mass flow [kg/s]
• Cooling water volume flow from river [m³/s]
• Number of cooling tower pumps
• Cooling water volume flow over cooling tower [m³/s]
• Electric output from generator [MW]
• Electric output for sale [MW]
• Profit [€]
• Heat input into river [MJ/s]