Employees from Virginia's Surry power plant have won the Nuclear Energy Institute's "Best of the Best" award for an innovative inspection process that saved more than $1 million.
The accolade, named after B. Ralph Sylvia, was among the NEI's Top Industry Practice awards announced Wednesday at the organization's annual meeting. A team at the Dominion plant developed a first-of-its kind inspection process and specialized tooling that enhanced examinations of hard-to-reach places like welds in reactor vessel walls. Plant personnel also engineered remote-controlled hydro lasers for cleaning and remote inspection cameras. The equipment and the carefully planned program that put them to use are expected to create similar savings at Dominion's other nuclear plants.
The NEI also announced its Top Industry Practice awards in 12 other categories:
- American Electric Power employees at Michigan's Cook nuclear plant won the AREVA Vendor Award for a new approach to reactor vessel maintenance.
- Employees at Southern Co.'s Hatch plant in Georgia won the GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Vendor Award. The team adapted the GEH Stinger remote-controlled vehicle to perform first-of-a-kind inspections inside reactor vessels.
- NextEra Energy employees at Wisconsin's Point Beach plant won the Westinghouse Design Vendor Award for an efficient reactor vessel examination process using ultrasonic devices, high-tech cameras and custom tools.
- Arizona Public Service employees at the Palo Verde plant won the Westinghouse-Combustion Engineering Design Vendor Award for a process to inspect 61 difficult-to-access instrument nozzles.
- Pacific Gas and Electric employees at the Diablo Canyon power plant won the Community Relations Award.
- Exelon employees won the Operate Plant Award for innovation in the storage of low-level radioactive waste.
- APS employees won the Maintenance Award for a bottom-mounted instrument nozzle repair at Palo Verde unit 3.
- Palo Verde employees also won the Materials, Management Processes and Support Services Award for the management of difficult reactor vessel repairs.
- Exelon won the Plant Support Award after a Braidwood employee invented the "jack trap" electrical safety device that prevents worker injury and the accidental activation of equipment.
- Employees at Xcel Energy's Monticello plant in Minnesota won the Training Award for advanced simulation modeling.
- Duke Energy employees at the Catawba plant won the Nuclear Fuel Award for implementing the industry's first high-capacity dry storage system.
- Employees at Duke Energy's McGuire and Catawba plants won the Vision, Leadership and Ingenuity Award for their Emergency Core Cooling Water Management Initiative.
More details on the awards can be found here.