1054 ABWR Operation Experience at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
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ABWR Operation Experience at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS Tatsuro KOBAYASHI1*, Kimitoshi YAHAGI2, Masumi ISHIKAWA3, and Hideya KITAMURA4 1, 2, 3Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Station, TEPCO, 16-46 Aoyama-cho, Kashiwazaki-shi, Niigata 945-0393, Japan 4Tokyo Electric Power Company, 1-3-1 Uchisaiwai-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8560, Japan The world’s first advanced boiling water reactors (ABWR), Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS unit 6 and 7 of twin 1,356 MWe, have continued safe and reliable operation contributing to not only supplying the Tokyo metropolitan area with electricity but also securing energy resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The ABWR, which was jointly developed by GE, Toshiba, Hitachi and TEPCO based on the construction and operation experiences of conventional BWRs, could be integrated with various features, such as enhanced safety, reliability, improved operability, maneuverability, economy, reduced occupational radiation exposure and radioactive wastes. Those features have been demonstrated as expected through operation and outage experiences since 1996. Although we had experienced several unplanned shutdowns in unit 6 and 7, the root causes of these shutdowns were almost due to the conventional problems, such as the failure of electrical instrument, plant auxiliary system, or fuel failure. Thus, we will make every effort to continue excellent operation and we hope that the experience obtained at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa unit 6 and 7 is used for future development of the ABWR. KEYWORDS: ABWR, RIP, RCCV, Digitalized Main Control Room I. Introduction In Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS (Fig. 1), located 220 km northwest of Tokyo, 7 units of BWR have been in service since the start of commercial operation of unit 1 in 1985 (Fig. 2). The total electrical output is 8,212 MWe, producing approximate 60 TWh of electricity every year. There are two generations of BWR, such as the BWR-5 and the ABWR. The world’s first advanced boiling water reactors (ABWR), unit 6 and 7 of twin 1,356 MWe, have continued safe and reliable operation since their start of commercial operation in 1996 and 1997, respectively. Fig. 1 Kashiwazaki Kariwa NPS As of March 2003, operation and maintenance activities at the seven BWR units at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS are The ABWR could be integrated with various features, carried out by about 950 TEPCO employees and 3 to 4 such as enhanced safety, reliability, improved operability, thousand subcontractor employees. Of these, about 60 maneuverability, economy, reduced occupational radiation operators and 20 dedicated O&M support team members exposure and radioactive wastes. Those features have are employed for the twin ABWRs. In addition, digital been demonstrated from construction through operation control engineering and maintenance group was organized stages. In this paper, we introduce ABWR operation in 1998 as a special team for the maintenance of the digital experience since the start of commercial operation of unit 6 equipment mainly adopted in the ABWRs. and 7. * Corresponding author, Tel. +81-257-45-3131, Fax. +81-257-20-2529, E-mail: [email protected] 1/8 Unit 7: 1,356MW Feb-92 65months Jul-97 Unit 6: 1,356MW Sep-91 62months Nov-96 Unit 5: 1,100MW Oct-83 78months Apr-90 Unit 4: 1,100MW Feb-88 78months Aug-94 Unit 3: 1,100MW Jul-87 73months Aug-93 Unit 2: 1,100MW Oct-83 83months Sep-90 Dec-78 82months Sep-85 Unit 1: 1,100MW Fig. 2 Construction of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS II. Main Feature of the ABWR The ABWR, which was jointly developed by GE, Toshiba, Hitachi, TEPCO and other BWR operating utility companies in Japan, was evolved from the construction and Fig. 3 Design feature of the ABWR operation experiences of conventional BWRs. TEPCO decided to deploy the first-of-a-kind ABWR units at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS in 1987. 1. Reactor Internal Pump (RIP) The advanced control & instrument system, fine-motion The introduction of RIPs eliminates the recirculation control rod drive (FMCRD), reactor internal pump (RIP), piping outside the vessel that results in the improvement of reinforced concrete containment vessel (RCCV), and large operability and safety. The reactor core will remain capacity turbine & moisture separator re-heater are main covered with water during any pipe break accidents due to features of the improvements adopted in the ABWR (Table elimination of recirculation piping (Fig. 4). This 1, Fig. 3). simplified piping of reactor recirculation was able to realize Safety has been further enhanced, compared with to be free from the SCC on PLR piping, which is recently conventional BWRs by the introduction of an ECCS detected and repaired in unit 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. network consisting of three independent divisions with low One of 10 RIPs is maintained in each outage. and high pressure systems. Also, severe accident Maintenance and inspection of the RIPs are implemented mitigation systems have been originally added to its design. using handling equipment, which is also installed in the Reactor Maintenance Training Facility next to the NPS site. Table 1 Main specification of BWR-5 and ABWR In the training using the equipment, trainees are intended to Unit 5 Unit 6 acquire RIP’s assembly and disassembly techniques, Reactor type BWR-5 ABWR improving their maintenance and inspection skills. It is Start of commercial operation 1990 1996 possible to disassemble and assemble a RIP for less than 30 Rated thermal output (MWt) 3,293 3,926 hours, respectively. Primary containment vessel Mark II RCCV Rated electrical output (MWe) 1,100 1,356 Thermal efficiency (%) 33.4 34.5 Reactor Reactor P ressure V essel Fuel assemblies 764 872 P ressure V essel Control rods 185 205 Core ave. power density (kW/l) 50.0 50.6 Reactor Internal P u m p Coolant recirculation external internal Reactor C oolant ECCS system div. I LPCS+LPCI RCIC+LPFL R ecirc u lation Pum p div. II LPCI+LPCI HPCF+LPFL C urrent B W R ABWR div. III HPCS HPCF+LPFL Fig. 4 Reactor internal pumps 2/8 2. Core Design 4. Reinforced Concrete Containment Vessel (RCCV) The initial fuel design of 872 fuel assemblies was 8 by 8 In the previous BWR plant design, the reactor primary fuel with 39.5 GWD/t (average burn-up). And currently containment vessel (PCV) has been typically constructed they are replaced by 9 by 9 fuel with 45 GWD/t (average using thick steel. In the RCCV design adopted for the burn-up). In unit 6 and 7, more than half of the core has ABWR, a thin steel liner plate provides leakage protection been already replaced by 9 by 9 fuel (Table 2). As a while two-meter thick reinforced concrete contains the countermeasure against fuel failure by debris, fuel pressure (Fig. 6). assemblies with debris filter in the lower tie plate have been Unlike the freestanding structure of a conventional PCV, adopted since the 5th operation cycle in unit 6 in 2001. the RCCV was constructed simultaneously with reactor Spent fuel has been cooled and stored in the spent fuel building that led to reduce the construction period. In pool equipped with each unit until the transportation to the addition, this integrated configuration offers great flexibility reprocessing plant in Aomori prefecture. In each unit, in structural design because the reactor building and the about 400% capacity of a core can be reserved in the spent RCCV complement each other to withstand design loads. fuel pool, increasing storage capacity and/or narrowing Taking advantage of this flexibility, the plant general space between spent fuel assemblies. arrangement was optimized to reduce the reactor building volume. Table 2 Core design of the ABWRs Reactor th Building 5 operation cycle unit 6 unit 7 Steel Containment 8 by 8: 483 497 Vessel 9 by 9: 212 179 Reinforced 70 m Concrete Containment 9 by 9 with debris filter: 177 196 Vessel 58 m 48 m Steel Liner 36 m 3. Fine Motion Control Rod Drive (FMCRD) RIP Newly adopting the FMCRD contributed the reduction 29 m PLR Pump 29 m of plant start-up time with gang operation of control rods 51 × 49 m 59 × 56 m Conventional BWR ABWR (Fig. 5). Also, the use of the FMCRD in the ABWRs enables rod pattern adjustment under full power operation Fig. 6 Reinforced concrete containment vessel with almost no change in core flow while other BWRs needs considerable reactor power reduction on control rod pattern change, especially towards the end of operating 5. Digitalized Main Control Room cycles. TEPCO analyzed operator workloads during the ABWR Maintenance training for replacement of the FMCRD is development phase, in which heavy workloads, such as also possible to be practiced at the Rector Maintenance stabilizing the plant after an unplanned shutdown, were Training Facility. identified and automated. The automated control systems with integrated digital technology and improved man-machine interface of the ABWR-type main control panels, called third generation main control panels, dramatically improve plant operability (Fig. 7). Also, the use of digital control in safety grade systems has never caused safety related incidents so far. The characteristics of the third generation of main control room panels are as follows: (a) the compact main control console that allows operators to supervise and control in their seated position, (b) the large display panel to share information by operators, (c) the touch-operation switches for CRTs and flat Fig. 5 Fine motion control rod drive displays, 3/8 (d) the hierarchic arrangement of alarm displays, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS is located or 500 ships of (e) the comprehensive digitalization of the control systems 200,000 tons oil tanker. Also, we can say that the release including safety systems, and of 430 million tons of carbon dioxide was prevented.