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New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
Jianqing Ye, Paul J. Turinsky
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 129 | Number 2 | June 1998 | Pages 97-123
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE98-A1967
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The computational capability of automatically determining the optimal control strategies for pressurized water reactor core maneuvering, in terms of an operating strategy generator (OSG), has been developed. The OSG was developed for use with an on-line, three-dimensional core simulator and applies optimal control theory. To reduce computer run time, the optimization engine employs a one-dimensional axial core model. A method has been developed for generating a consistent one-dimensional axial core model from the three-dimensional on-line core simulator based on the consistent collapse methodology. From the one-dimensional, model-based, optimal control strategy, the associated axial offset versus time is obtained. These axial offsets are subsequently used in the three-dimensional simulator to determine with enhanced accuracy the associated control rod insertions and boration/dilution operations versus time.Various operational objectives are defined as the performance index to be minimized. The axial flux difference limit constraint and the maximum boration/dilution limit constraint are treated as penalty functions added to the performance index. The control rod insertion/withdraw limit constraint is treated as a hard constraint on the control variable. The optimality condition is obtained by applying Pontryagin's maximum principle for constrained optimization. The resulting nonlinear, two-point boundary-value problem is solved via an iterative approach based on the first-order gradient method.Several sample OSG maneuvering problems have been studied to assess the robustness and efficiency of the optimization search and nonlinear iterations. The algorithm exhibited excellent control of the axial power distribution during maneuvering. For the cases of minimizing the boron system duty during maneuvering, the optimal strategies produced reduced volumes of primary water generated by dilution and boration operations of 12% for beginning-of-cycle cases and 10% for end-of-cycle cases over the volumes generated using heuristic rules.