Stories of innovation in the nuclear industry often focus on the advanced reactors under development, but there’s a thriving culture of innovation and excellence across all plants in the U.S. fleet. NEI’s annual Top Innovative Practice (TIP) Awards recognize those employees whose new ideas and approaches make the sector more efficient, cost-competitive and even safer.
This year’s 11 winning teams included prime examples of efforts making America’s nuclear facilities run better and more economically. And it’s clear their efforts are paying off.
“The progress we have made together as an industry has been clear – last year, America’s nuclear plants achieved an average capacity factor of 93.4 percent, our highest ever,” said Jennifer Uhle, vice president of generation and suppliers at NEI, who hosted the first-ever virtual TIP Award presentations on July 9.
“At the same time, we have managed to reduce our 2019 operating costs by 32 percent from their peak in 2012. We accomplished this through innovative thinking and innovative new ways of doing things,” Uhle said.
This year’s TIP Awards recognized achievements as diverse as the installation of a network of wireless sensors to monitor plant conditions around the clock, the testing of a new type of fuel that would improve plant performance, and the piloting of the use of virtual reality to interest students in a career in nuclear energy.
Each year NEI selects one winning team to receive NEI’s Best of the Best Award. This year the top honor went to a team from Arizona Public Service’s Palo Verde Generating Station in Arizona, which developed in-house software applications that used machine learning to automate time-consuming tasks such as screening reports or searching maintenance logs.
“By developing software applications to automate some of our business processes at the Palo Verde Generating Station, this team put their smart thinking into practice that is already making our plant even safer and more efficient,” said APS Chief Nuclear Officer Maria Lacal as she congratulated winners Bradley Fox, Jerrold Vincent, Sean Benner, and Phil Zeringue during the presentation.
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Chief Nuclear Officer Maria Lacal with Palo Verde's Best of the Best Award.
Seeing how much administrative work these applications have reduced at the plant, the team is already looking into applications to automate other business processes.
The award winners included teams from:
- Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station, PSEG Nuclear LLC
- Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Tennessee Valley Authority
- Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant, American Electric Power
- Palo Verde Generating Station. Arizona Public Service Company
- Workforce Development, XR Lab, Duke Energy
- Callaway Energy Center, Ameren Missouri
- Surry Power Station, Dominion Energy
- Brunswick Nuclear Plant, Duke Energy
- Exelon Nuclear Generation (corporate)
- Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Southern Nuclear
At the end of the program, NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick noted that the TIP award winners were just the “tip of the iceberg,” when it comes to fresh thinking throughout the U.S. nuclear energy sector. “There are thousands of examples of the innovative thinking from across the industry – at our nuclear power plants, at our suppliers, and at our service providers – that enables nuclear energy to power our homes and cities with carbon-free electricity,” she said.
Watch the full 2020 TIP Awards presentation here:
