IMPROVED ECONOMICS AND RELIABILITY WHILE MAINTAINING HIGH LEVELS OF SAFETY – ACHIEVEMENTS AND ON-GOING R&D WITHIN RISA PATHWAY

The United States nuclear industry is facing a strong challenge to maintain regulatory required levels of safety while ensuring economic competitiveness to stay in business. Safety remains a key parameter for all aspects related to operation of light water reactor (LWR) nuclear power plants (NPPs) and can be achieved more economically by using a risk informed ecosystem such as that being developed by the Risk-Informed Systems Analysis (RISA) Pathway under the United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program. The LWRS Program is promoting a wide range of research and development (R&D) activities with the goal to maximize the safety, economics, and performance of NPPs through improved scientific understanding, especially given that many plants are considering second license renewal. Within the RISA Pathway, the application of risk is somewhat unconventional: the R&D that is applied through the Pathway is not just centered on the traditional safety margin; instead, we take a broader view of risk that encompasses integrated models that can better represent plant margins in terms of operational efficiencies, safety, and economics. The RISA Pathway has two main goals: 1) deployment of technologies that enable better representation of safety margins and the factors that contribute to cost and safety, and 2) development of advanced applications that enable cost-effective plant operation. The U.S. federal government understands the vital importance of the LWR fleet for the country’s energy, environmental, and economic needs and, through the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, sponsors R&D activities targeting fleet sustainability. As such, R&D activities resulting from the DOE sponsorship provide tremendous benefits to the industry – modern advanced technologies become readily available for implementation by any LWR NPP in the country. Many of these technologies are also transferrable to advanced reactor designs. This paper presents accomplishments of the RISA Pathway, current R&D activities, and benefits for NPPs to employ these technologies.