Kursk nuclear power plant (UPS)

History / General information

The Kopitan-Dem company is one of the oldest partners of Eaton in use of the uninterruptible power supply units (UPSU) of average and big power at the enterprises of Russia. The engineering division Kopitan-Dem specializes more than 15 years in project implementation of the guaranteed regular power supply of especially responsible equipment.

Kopitan-Dem plays one of important roles in the nuclear power market of Russia: activity of the company is licensed by Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision on production and supervision of erection of the electrotechnical equipment for nuclear power stations. Since 2001 a regular customer of Kopitan-Dem company is the Rosenergoatom Concern branch of JSC "Kursk nuclear power plant". The main objective of JSC Rosenergoatom consists in cost-efficient and safe production of electrical and thermal energy on nuclear power plants of Russia. Today 10 nuclear power stations of Russia, including the Kursk NPP are a part of concern. For Kopitan-Dem this power plant became extremely significant project implemented together with Eaton company.

Task

Unlike the traditional centralized systems of uninterrupted power (SUP) for providing the most important security systems with power supply based on ADP equipment for power units of the NPP before Kopitan-Dem the task to develop the distributed SBP based on the uninterruptible power supply units (UPSU) of Eaton company was set.

A certain complexity of a task was that SBP had to provide with a power supply the End-to-end System of Control of Management and Protection of the reactor. In terms of functioning and security of the reactor it is the most important system on any NPP which should provide accomplishment of a safety feature in case of de-energization of own needs of the NPP within 30 minutes. In addition, it was necessary to consider scales: each power unit has power in 1 gigawatt of the electric power therefore requirements to reliability of the UPS were imposed very high in connection with big economic losses from idle time of the power unit of such power.

The UPS 9315 model based on which, proceeding from power consumption, it was decided to design SBP not completely met the specific requirements imposed to the equipment used on the NPP. With respect thereto the decision on constructive completion of the Eaton UPS by Kopitan-Dem company which provided fulfillment of requirements to impact of sinusoidal vibration, seismostability, electromagnetic compatibility and degree of protection against environmental activity was made.

Solution

After the carried-out necessary constructive completions and the subsequent tests Kopitan-Dem offered the three-channel two-complete RPS (regular power supply) system with structure of N+1 which maintained failures in any set of BES. UPS 9315 was taken as a basis. These UPSes in composition began to provide a power supply of the End-to-end System of Control of Management and Protection (KSKUZ) of the reactor. The BES system consisted of 8 Eaton UPSes with a power from 65 kVA to 160 kVA and was for the first time set on the first block of the Kursk NPP. This system provided, first of all, high-quality and regular power supply. The same UPSes were used in the system of abnormal cooling of the reactor and the systems of normal operation important for security.

The example of the Kursk NPP turned out so successful that similar hardware upgrade of regular power supply was executed also on other NPPs with RBMK reactors. Thus, by the end of 2012 for ensuring power supply of the most responsible power consumers on the Kursk NPP 46 Eaton UPSes were installed in total. On all NPPs of this kind taking into account the Kursk NPP 92 Eaton UPSes of models 9315 and 9390 with a power from 60 kVA to 250 kVA, megavoltamper with a total power of 10, and more than 100 6 kVA UPSes were installed.

Within the concept of energy efficient architecture the Eaton company developed the unique advanced technologies increasing efficiency of systems without decrease in reliability. The topology of double conversion of tension realizokvanny in model 9390 provides the maximum level of protection of the connected electronics against all possible problems arising in a power line. Thanks to transformless design and high-precision technologies of measurement and management of efficiency of the Eaton 9390 UPS reaches 94%, and in the highly effective mode – to 99% with electrical power factor 0.9. High efficiency of model 9390 cuts down expenses on the electric power, increases service life of the UPSes internal components and reduces load of cooling systems.

Work with Hot Sync® two technology or more UPS in a parallel, providing uniform distribution of loading, at the same time, unlike a traditional parallelkny system, between the UPS there are no command cables of communication. In such system there is no potentially dangerous uniform point of failure, and the probability of failures in its work is almost reduced to zero. Also it should be noted technology of a three-stage charge ABM® using which the UPS constantly traces a status of batteries, optimizes a charging interval and prolongs the term of their service up to 50%.

In addition to these important characteristics the chief engineer of the Kursk NPP, Uvakin A.V., noted one more important aspect: "We bear huge responsibility on our shoulders – and here it is not only about high-quality and regular power supply, but also about ensuring nuclear and radiation safety of nuclear power stations therefore we are able to afford only the most reliable and checked equipment. And we are very glad to note that already for more than fifteen years we with success trust talented engineers of Kopitan-Dem company and the high-performance Eaton equipment".

Result

In June, 2012, after ten years of continuous operation, expanded examination of all 8 Eaton UPSes which are composition of BES of the first power unit of the Kursk NPP was conducted.

As a result of this inspection it was revealed that mean time between failures without transition to the Bypass makes 173,994 hours, with transition to the Bypass – 347,988 hours for the entire period of operation that more than three times in the first case and more than twice in the second case exceeds the values declared by Eaton. Victor Ashurkov, technical director of Kopitan-Dem LLC:

"Together with representatives of the Kursk NPP we analyzed results of ten years' work and with confidence we can draw the main conclusion: the result of our cooperation considerably exceeded expectations, prodemonstirovav the highest reliability and uniqueness of the equipment Eaton. Structure of a system in which 3 failures do not bring to any effects in the fed equipment, high quality of voltage output, remote monitoring of all UPSes which are logging in repair of a system without its complete de-energization and shutdown of the fed loading - all this indisputable advantages which do work of the NPP effective and safe".