Emergency diesel generator: Maintenance and failure unavailability, and their risk impacts

Abstract

Emergency Diesel Generators (EDGs) provide on-site emergency alternating current (ac) electric power for a nuclear plant in the event that all off-site power sources are lost. Existing regulations establish requirements for designing and testing of these on-site power sources to reduce to an acceptable level the probability of losing all ac power sources. Operating experience with EDGs has raised questions about their testing and maintenance to achieve the EDG reliability levels and the total EDG unavailability experienced (fraction of time EDG is out-of-service due to testing, maintenance, and failures). In this report, recent operating experience is used to assess EDG unavailability due to testing, maintenance, and failures during reactor power operation and during plant shutdown. Recent data show an improvement in EDG reliability, but an increase in EDG unavailability due to maintenance, a significant portion of which is due to routinely scheduled maintenances. Probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) of selected nuclear power plants are used to assess the risk impact of EDG unavailability due to maintenance and failure during power operation, and during different stages of plant shutdown. The results of these risk analyses suggest qualitative insights for scheduling EDG maintenance that will have minimal impact on risk of operating nuclearmore » power plants.« less