U.S. nuclear outages higher than last year, for now

(Reuters) - U.S. nuclear power outages over the last few months have been averaging well above last year and the five-year average primarily due to the continued shutdown of four reactors for major, long-term maintenance, according to Reuters data.

 

Natural gas traders follow the nuclear outages closely because plants burning gas usually make up much of the missing nuclear generation, especially during periods of high demand.

It takes about 200 million cubic feet (mcf) of natural gas per day to generate about 1,000 MW of electricity.

Thomson Reuters Analytics estimated that nuclear outages last week boosted gas demand by about 500 mcf per day, or nearly 1 percent of estimated gas demand this month.

There were about 16,500 MW of nuclear capacity out on Friday versus about 11,700 MW out at the same time in 2011 and a five-year average out of 13,200 MW. [ID:nL4E8KS55B]

But by the middle of October as reactors return to service, available nuclear capacity should climb above both last year and the seasonal average, according to Reuters data.

The number of outages in 2012 has remained higher than 2011 since June, and also above the five-year average since May.

The reactors currently shut for long-term outages were the two units at Southern California Edison's (SCE) 2,150-MW San Onofre in California, Progress Energy Florida's 860-MW Crystal River in Florida and Omaha Public Power District's 478-MW Fort Calhoun in Oklahoma.

But the loss of the four units alone does not explain why there are more nuclear megawatts down now than in the past since there were also four reactors out for long-term work this time last year - Crystal River and Fort Calhoun, which are still shut, and the two reactors at Virginia power company Dominion's 1,863-MW North Anna in Virginia.

The North Anna units shut in August 2011 following an earthquake near the plant and returned in November 2011.

There are more outages now in part because there are also 10 units already shut for planned refueling versus only seven at the same time in 2011.

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New Automated Report Templates Creation

Knowledge Relay, LLC. a leader in nuclear plant data and reporting for online, maintenance, and outage support is working closely with multiple U.S. nuclear operators to develop automated templates. The new solution will greatly improve the manual processes, cost, and time currently required by nuclear plants to create reports.

Some of the quick hits are for reports required to display:

• Scope Stability
• Resource Loading
• Schedule Adherence

Lee Gliddon, Executive Vice President at Knowledge Relay stated, "We have already automated reports for some of our customers, but the next step was really promoted by a group of operators that met in Florida this year at a special meeting focused on requirements. It became clear from the meeting that the costs in time, money, and resources for the industry was significant and we knew a standardized template that virtually all operators could employ would be a viable solution."

The first series of templates will be released in June 2012 after they are reviewed by those in the community that deal with recommendations on a regular basis.

Gliddon also shared, "These templates should translate directly for those operators complying with regulatory recommendations. The end goal is provide an automated solution that is quickly deployed. These templates will build upon the automated Time Scaled Gantts, PERT charts, Work Off Curves, Histograms (by shift), and Predecessor / Successor reports and views we already provide."

"Knowledge Relay provides solutions to approximately 60% of the Nuclear Plants in the United States. The expertise we have gained over 20 years in the industry has brought us the role as a trusted adviser and it's time to give back to the community."

With nuclear operators applying their own interpretations to recommendations having a standardized and automated solution created by industry experts and available to all is a step in the right direction.

TABLE-French nuclear plant outages/restarts

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