The Oconee Nuclear Station located on Lake Keowee near Seneca, South Carolina, will be the first of 104 US reactors to go digital.
Oconee's new system will be implemented at Reactor 1 during this refueling outage and is part of a $2 billion upgrade effort by Duke Energy.
Digital systems have already been implemented in Asia and Europe but it has been slow going in the U.S. mainly because of the fear of hackers breaking into the system. Oconee's software was designed with no external network connections, and any communication between the system and reactor operators is "heavily restricted."
The new digital control panels will be put in place at Oconee's Reactor 1 within the next few weeks, while Reactor 2 will receive the same upgrades during next year's refueling and Reactor 3 will get the digital conversion in 2013. The new panels for all three reactors will cost $250 million, and last the life of the plants.