Electricity reform experiences in Asia, Pacific Region, GATS and privatisation of the industry

This paper examines the package of reforms often applied to the electricity industry and discusses its relevance to Sri Lanka. It examines experience in other Asian countries with these reforms. It also looks at the status of GATS in the electricity sector

An Intelligent Monitoring Interface for a Coal-Fired Power Plant Boiler Trips

A power plant monitoring system embedded with artificial intelligence can enhance its effectiveness by reducing the time spent in trip analysis and follow up procedures. Experimental results showed that Multilayered perceptron neural network trained with Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm achieved the least mean squared error of 0.0223 with the misclassification rate of 7.435% for the 10 simulated trip prediction. The proposed method can identify abnormality of operational parameters at the confident level of ±6.3%

An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper

This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014

Advanced monitoring and advice integrating a comprehensive sensor network for improved operational availability

Thesis (Sc.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Nuclear Engineering, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 247-250).This research broadens the prime concern of nuclear power plant operations from safe performance to both economic and safe performance through monitoring and advice. First, rotating machines such as turbine generators and reactor coolant pumps are identified as main contributors for the lost availability through the review of pressurized water reactor (PWR) forced outage records. The integrated architecture utilizes comprehensive sensor networks incorporating modern signal processing systems, advisory systems for sensor validation, and advisory systems for the intelligent diagnosis and maintenance (D&M). For the development of comprehensive sensor networks for complex target systems, an integrated method incorporating a structural system hierarchy and a functional system hierarchy, a fault-symptom matrix, sensor selection criteria, a sensor installation feasibility study, and advanced instrumentation techniques is formulated. Such advanced instrumentation techniques reflect the state of the art in advancement of data acquisition, data processing, and data integration techniques. Once the sensor types and locations are selected definitively, they are incorporated into drawings using a computer aided design tool (e.g. AutoCAD) program in order to make sure that it would be possible to install the comprehensive set of recommended sensors on each specific component studied. The second major part of this study is the development of an intelligent D&M advisory system integrating a comprehensive sensor network. This advisory system employs a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) as a high level reasoning tool for incorporating inherent uncertainty for use in probabilistic inference. It is demonstrated that a rule-based knowledge representation is simply a special case of a general BBN by showing how the general BBN can be reduced to a rule-based representation. The presented major steps for constructing the BBN based generic inference algorithms are applied to systematic elicitation and synthesis of various levels of experts' knowledge. Prototype D&M algorithms are represented explicitly through topological symbols and links between them in a causal direction. This D&M advisory system is set up with an easy-to-learn, user-friendly, man-machine interface and modern graphics for efficient operator interactions. As new pieces of evidence from sensor networks developed are entered into this system, it provides operational advice concerning both availability and safety so that the operator is able to determine the likely failure modes, diagnose the system state, locate root causes, and take the most advantageous action. Thereby, the comprehensive monitoring supported advice improves operational availability.bu Chang Woo Kang.Sc.D

A Review of Prognostics and Health Management Applications in Nuclear Power Plants

The US operating fleet of light water reactors (LWRs) is currently undergoing life extensions from the original 40-year license to 60 years of operation. In the US, 74 reactors have been approved for the first round license extension, and 19 additional applications are currently under review. Safe and economic operation of these plants beyond 60 years is now being considered in anticipation of a second round of license extensions to 80 years of operation.Greater situational awareness of key systems, structures, and components (SSCs) can provide the technical basis for extending the life of SSCs beyond the original design life and supports improvements in both safety and economics by supporting optimized maintenance planning and power uprates. These issues are not specific to the aging LWRs; future reactors (including Generation III+ LWRs, advanced reactors, small modular reactors, and fast reactors) can benefit from the same situational awareness. In fact, many SMR and advanced reactor designs have increased operating cycles (typically four years up to forty years), which reduce the opportunities for inspection and maintenance at frequent, scheduled outages. Understanding of the current condition of key equipment and the expected evolution of degradation during the next operating cycle allows for targeted inspection and maintenance activities. This article reviews the state of the art and the state of practice of prognostics and health management (PHM) for nuclear power systems. Key research needs and technical gaps are highlighted that must be addressed in order to fully realize the benefits of PHM in nuclear facilities