Building for nuclear’s next chapter

[Marlin]

Building for nuclear's next chapter

https://www.neimagazine.com/analysis/building-for-nuclears-next-chapter/?cf-view

[Core Content]

Source: neimagazine.com.

Aging nuclear power plants are increasingly reliant on balance-of-plant electrical systems that have exceeded their original design life. Operators at facilities like Doel 4 in Belgium and Bruce Power in Canada are implementing targeted retrofits and modernizing switchgear and circuit breakers to maintain safety and reliability during extended operating license periods.

The primary challenge for the global fleet is that electrical infrastructure, rather than reactor vessels, is the limiting factor for long-term operation. As spare parts become scarce and specialized knowledge retires, plants are shifting from calendar-based maintenance to condition-based monitoring and digital diagnostics. This approach allows for surgical upgrades that avoid the costs and downtime associated with full system replacements.

Many operating reactors are over 30 years old, but ageing concerns lie less in reactor or containment and more in balance-of-plant electrical systems.

The global debate about nuclear energy has become fixated on the wrong question. While politicians discuss the merits of building new plants and investors chase the promise of small modular reactors, more than two-thirds of the world's 440-plus operating reactors are over 30 years old, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). More worryingly, the very electrical infrastructure keeping them alive is quietly approaching obsolescence at precisely the moment demand for nuclear...

Read the full article at neimagazine.com:
https://www.neimagazine.com/analysis/building-for-nuclears-next-chapter/?cf-view