Effects of house load operation on PSA based on operational experiences in Korea

Abstract

House load operation (HLO) occurs when the generator supplies power to the house load without triggering reactor trips during grid disturbances. In Korea, the HLO capability of optimized power reactor 1000 (OPR1000) plants has prevented several reactor trips.Operational experiences demonstrate the difference in the reactor trip incidence due to grid disturbances between OPR1000 plants and Westinghouse plants in Korea, attributable to the availability of the HLO capability. However, probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) for OPR1000 plants have not considered their specific design features in the initiating event analyses.In an at-power PSA, the HLO capability can affect the initiating event frequencies of general transients (GTRN) and loss of offsite power (LOOP), resulting from transients within the grid system. The initiating event frequencies of GTRN and LOOP for an OPR1000 plant are reduced by 17.7% and 78.7%, respectively, compared to the Korean industry-average initiating event frequencies, and its core damage frequency from internal events is reduced by 15.2%. The explicit consideration of the HLO capability in initiating event analyses makes significant changes in the risk contributions of the initiating events. Consequently, for more realistic at-power PSAs in Korea, we recommend incorporating plant-specific HLO-related design features when estimating initiating event frequencies.