Development of a Technical, Economic, Risk, and Adoption Assessment Framework for the Evaluation of Modernization Opportunities

The efficient and cost-effective operation of nuclear power plants is essential for ensuring their long-term economic sustainability and competitiveness. Although the nuclear industry has achieved record high reliability and capacity factors, multiple cost savings and modernization opportunities exist as technology continues to progress. Identifying and objectively screening these opportunities is a periodic and essential plant activity for reducing overall costs and maintaining a modern fleet with up-to-date technology.However, evaluating these opportunities can be challenging for nuclear plant experts and engineers due to the complexity of the plant processes and the constant evolution of new technologies. These challenges often result in the use of costly consultants or potentially the miscalculation of risks or benefits of new technology.To address these challenges, this paper presents the technical, economic, and risk assessment (TERA) framework for screening and evaluating modernization opportunities. This novel framework combines several methodologies, such as process mapping and probabilistic modeling, to help nuclear plants perform quantitative assessments that can aid plant personnel in making risk-informed decisions for technology investments. This novel combination of methodologies creates a systematic evaluation that can reduce investment risk and ensure confidence in the integration of new technologies into existing processes. This paper introduces the TERA framework and presents a case study with initial quantitative results.