NPP-Smart Grid Mutual Safety and Cyber Security Assurance

2022 ◽  
pp. 1047-1077
Author(s):  
Eugene Brezhniev ◽  
Oleg Ivanchenko

The smart grid (SG) is a movement to bring the electrical power grid up to date so it can meet current and future requirements to fit customer needs. Disturbances in SG operation can originate from natural disasters, failures, human factors, terrorism, and so on. Outages and faults will cause serious problems and failures in the interconnected power systems, propagating into critical infrastructures such as nuclear industries, telecommunication systems, etc. Nuclear power plants (NPP) are an intrinsic part of the future smart grid. Therefore, it is of high priority to consider SG safety, mutual influence between NPP and SG, forecast possible accidents and failures of this interaction, and consider the strategies to avoid them.

Author(s):  
Eugene Brezhniev ◽  
Oleg Ivanchenko

The smart grid (SG) is a movement to bring the electrical power grid up to date so it can meet current and future requirements to fit customer needs. Disturbances in SG operation can originate from natural disasters, failures, human factors, terrorism, and so on. Outages and faults will cause serious problems and failures in the interconnected power systems, propagating into critical infrastructures such as nuclear industries, telecommunication systems, etc. Nuclear power plants (NPP) are an intrinsic part of the future smart grid. Therefore, it is of high priority to consider SG safety, mutual influence between NPP and SG, forecast possible accidents and failures of this interaction, and consider the strategies to avoid them.


Author(s):  
David J. Calhoun ◽  
Mark A. Gake

Operating nuclear power plants typically have backup electrical power supplied by diesel generators. Although backup power systems are designed with redundant trains, each capable of supplying the power requirements for safe shutdown equipment, there is a common-mode seismic failure risk inherent in these customary backup power arrangements. In an earthquake, multiple equipment trains with similar, if not identical, components located side-by-side are exposed to inertial forces that are essentially identical. In addition, because of their similar subcomponent configurations, seismic fragilities are approximately equal. In that case, the probability of multiple backup power system failures during an earthquake is likely to be dependent on, and nearly the same as, the individual seismic failure probability of each equipment train. Post-earthquake inspections at conventional multiple unit power stations over the last 40 years identified this common-mode seismic failure risk long before the tsunami-related common-mode failures of diesel generators at Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011. Experience data from post-earthquake inspections also indicate that failure probabilities of diverse sets of power generation equipment are independent and inherently less susceptible to common-mode failures. This paper demonstrates that employing diverse backup power designs will deliver quantifiable improvements in electrical system availability following an earthquake. These improvements are illustrated from available literature of post-earthquake inspection reports, along with other firsthand observations. A case study of the seismic performance of similarly configured electrical power generation systems is compared to the performance of diverse sets of electrical power systems. Seismic probabilistic risk analyses for several system configurations are presented to show the benefit of improved post-earthquake availability that results from designing new backup power systems with greater diversity.


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