Multi-billion-dollar projects bringing new reactors into service at facilities like Georgia’s Plant Vogtle and South Carolina’s V.C. Summer nuclear plant will offer a range of opportunities to contractor companies that serve the industry.
New build also brings a new dimension to the regulatory regime contractors face. And to that end the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced a workshop June 28 to help vendors participating in nuclear construction projects. It will take place from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Renaissance Harborplace hotel in Baltimore, Md.
Organized by NRC staff, the industry vendor clearinghouse Nuclear Procurement Issues Committee (NUPIC), the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Electric Power Research Institute and vendor companies, the workshop will address a range of issues contractors face related to the licensing of a new plant. They include vendor oversight, quality assurance rulemaking, international calibration laboratories, counterfeit prevention, safety, software quality assurance and non-reactor vendor inspections. The event will be held in conjunction with a NUPIC vendor meeting.
“Vendors’ quality products and expertise are vital to ensuring new reactors are built to operate safely,” Laura Dudes, director of the NRC’s division of construction inspection in the Office of New Reactors, said in a release. “We want to ensure current and potential vendors understand our requirements and how rigorously we oversee construction sites and the vendors themselves.”