Southern Nuclear Adds New Power Plant Simulators
GSE Systems said it has delivered and commissioned three additional full-scope simulators for Southern Nuclear's new Operations Training Centers. The simulators are for the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant, and the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant.
Simulators provide efficient hands-on learning for power plant operators. While power plants of any type can benefit from simulators, nuclear plants perhaps gain the most value, as missteps on a live reactor plant can result in grave consequences. Simulators generally operate on personal computers and are provided for a broad audience of technical and non-technical professionals, students, and instructors.
GSE said Southern Nuclear's additional simulators will add flexible scheduling and increased capacity that can drive operator performance. The simulators will also offer more availability to each plant's engineering and maintenance staff, who find the simulators useful for virtually commissioning plant changes, validating plant procedures, management certification, and a variety of other training activities. Furthermore, the simulators are said to have been upgraded with some of the latest technology, including GSE's new OpenSim 7.0 simulator operating system and enhanced containment modeling program and its PSA-HD program to train operators on beyond-design-basis events.
Since building the first commercial full-scope nuclear reactor simulator in 1971, GSE claims to have delivered more full-scope simulators than all of its competitors combined. The company also offers applications for thermal power plants and petroleum facilities, and says it has completed more than 1,100 installations in 50 countries.
"We are proud of our longstanding relationship with Southern Nuclear," Kyle Loudermilk, president and CEO of GSE, said in a press release. "It was an exciting project that called upon our capabilities in hardware and software engineering and design, along with manufacturing logistics and complex project management. We could not have succeeded without a close working relationship with the Southern Nuclear team, for which we are very grateful."
-POWER staff.
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