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Control Centre Change - Operator Support Experience, Principles, and Challenges
Abstract: Operational experience worldwide has demonstrated that the effectiveness and efficiency with which tasks are performed in plant control rooms are primary enabling factors in attaining effective plant operations. To achieve and sustain top production performance, and regulatory and peer performance ratings, utilities require control rooms whose workspace layouts, functions, support tools, and resources effectively support shift staff in working together to meet station operation objectives.
Beginning with initial implementation and commissioning, and extending through operations and refurbishments, nuclear generation facilities undergo continual change in response to evolving commercial, technological, regulatory and societal factors. This ongoing change leads to hybrid facilities with a variety of equipment capabilities, technologies, ages, support needs, and operational practices. While the introduction of new equipment and technologies can bring advantages in individual capability improvements, the evolving mixture of old and new equipment and technologies can increase operating and maintenance complexity and constraints.
This paper will discuss some of the impacts on control room operations of working within hybrid control room facilities using examples drawn from CANDU plant experience.
The paper will briefly review the evolution of CANDU control room capabilities, discuss some of the common impacts of operating within a continually evolving control room work environment from an operator perspective, describe principles for guiding equipment change implementation and introduction to better support control room operators in their operating duties, and outline some generic challenges facing control room change implementation and operator support.
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