Limerick’s digital leap: Sustainability through modernization

[Marlin]

Limerick's digital leap: Sustainability through modernization

https://www.ans.org/news/article-8327/limericks-digital-leap-sustainability-through-modernization/

[Core Content]

Constellation plans to upgrade the control rooms at the two nuclear units at Limerick with digital instrumentation and control systems. The project will replace legacy analog hardware with touchscreen and mouse interfaces. Unit 2 will undergo implementation in spring 2027, followed by Unit 1.

The upgrade marks the first safety-related digital control overhaul of this scale in the United States nuclear fleet. The facility operates two boiling water reactors with a combined net capacity of about 2,242 megawatts. The modernization aims to resolve analog parts obsolescence and transition operators into supervisory roles through increased system automation.

Constellation's Limerick plant has generated nuclear power in the community of Pottstown, Pa., northwest of Philadelphia, since the first of two boiling water reactors came on line 40 years ago, in 1986.

The plan is to keep Limerick running for at least another 40 years, but from a control room that would look wholly unfamiliar to its 1980s-era operators. Limerick is set to get a major safety-related digital instrumentation and control modernization for its two units, rated at 1,153 MWe and 1,162 MWe, respectively.

The Limerick Digital Modernization Project began in 2019, the same year the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued updated digital I&C interim staff guidance (ISG-06).ISG-06 Rev 2 was to allow the NRC staff to rely on audits and reviews during a license amendment request (LAR) instead of requiring all design information up front, and Constellation planned to test that premise and share the results with other utilities.

Read the full article at ans.org:
https://www.ans.org/news/article-8327/limericks-digital-leap-sustainability-through-modernization/