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News
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LCG, August 14, 2024 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2025, highlighting the region's rapid transition toward increased reliance on renewable energy resources and battery storage.
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LCG, August 14, 2024 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2025, highlighting the region's rapid transition toward increased reliance on renewable energy resources and battery storage.
Read more
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Industry News
13 U.S. Nukes Need Cracks in Cooling Nozzles Fixed
LCG, Dec. 11, 2001--The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, following inspections of 69 of the nation's 103 commercial nuclear reactors, has identified 13 that need to have emergency coolant injector nozzles either repaired or replaced.The problem does not pose a safety risk that could result in the release of radiation into the atmosphere, according to the NRC, but if its nozzles failed the results could shut down a reactor for months of repairs.The afflicted reactors are all pressurized water reactors, as are most of the world's commercial nuclear plants. A steel pressure vessel surrounds the core of these reactors, which contains fuel rods filled with uranium pellets and control rods, which are raised out of the fuel rod clusters to increase the reactor's output and inserted to lower the output or shut the plant down.At the top of the pressure vessel, are up to 100 coolant injector nozzles, which would be used to inject cold water in the event the core overheated. The control rods enter the pressure vessel through these nozzles.All of these things are housed in a containment building that surrounds the entire reactor, and would prevent any radioactive matter escaping the core from reaching the atmosphere.Microscopic longitudinal cracks have been detected in the nozzles for some time, but did not represent a structural threat, according to the NRC. But recently, tiny circumferential cracks have been detected which, if allowed to grow, could result in bits and pieces falling into the reactor core and creating a terrible mess that would be difficult to clean up.The resulting downtime would be very costly to the reactor owner and to its customers, who would have to pay for replacement power while the reactor was shut down for repairs.First Energy Corp. of Akron, Ohio, owns the 935 megawatt Davis Besse plant in that state which, according to Victor Dricks, an NRC spokesman, was one of the 13 plants identified as having the cracks. The company estimates that it could take up to 45 days to make repairs, which is significantly more time than consumed in a normal refueling and maintenance shutdown.Apparently, no plants were singled out as needing immediate repairs, so most will fix the problem during scheduled refueling and maintenance outages. Even so, extending those outages by two or three weeks will prove costly to an industry which has shown dramatic gains in efficiency and reliability over the past five years.
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UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
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UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
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UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
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PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
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