MTA-MA-028

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Administrative Items
Date	12/14/21
Functional Area Where Benefits Will Be Realized	Maintenance Quality Control
Reference Implementation Guidance	Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) User’s Guide for Nuclear Power Plants: Implementation Guidance, Technologies and Applications, and Cost Savings Opportunities (EPRI 3002020913) Remote Visual Inspections with Unmanned Aerial Systems (EPRI 3002013193)
Industry SME	EPRI – PRR, NDE Contact: nuclearplantmod@epri.com
Previous Implementation	Please contact EPRI for implementation examples and contacts.
Implementation Enablers	N/A
Applicability	All reactor types All geographic regions
Keywords	Remote visual inspection; personnel safety; UAS; unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV); containment inspection; UAVs; unmanned aerial system (UAS); maintenance
Business Case Analysis Cross-Reference	Plant Modernization Business Case: Drone Inspections of Containment Structures (EPRI 3002021027).

Description

Nuclear power plant personnel perform inspections of various plant components and structures that can be either routine or emergent. Traditional methods for these inspections can incur risk to personnel such as working at heights, in confined spaces, and in radiation areas. Additionally, the utility can incur high costs for supporting these inspections, such as contracting specialists to execute inspection work, building scaffolding and processing permits to gain access to the inspection area, and occupying utility staff for large amounts of time to set up and complete tasks in hazardous areas.

A UAS can be used to perform certain inspections at the same or better level of accuracy as traditional inspections while mitigating the issues with manned inspections noted above. Furthermore, the UAS can carry different payloads for the specific inspection needs, such as high‑definition imaging systems, thermography equipment, and other sensors to provide comprehensive data. A UAS can be used for both indoor and outdoor inspections and can often be used while the plant is at full power in radiation areas. For example, a UAS has been used in nuclear plants for containment dome inspections, transmission line inspections, and confined space surveys.

To conduct these inspections via a UAS, a plant would need to either contract a third‑party UAS service provider or establish its own internal UAS program. While external UAS service providers can provide inspections with less initial implementation cost for the utility, establishing an internal UAS program within the utility can result in greater long‑term cost savings and yield ancillary benefits (e.g., access to these capabilities in the event of emergent inspections, without a contracting process). For certain use cases, utility experience is that the cost for contracted services was high enough that the UAS equipment can be paid for in the first mission.

Benefits

Benefits Estimate

Level 0 – Savings are not evaluated because establishing an internal UAS program is an enabler that does not inherently produce cost savings but permits the implementation of other improvements. Specific savings will depend on which use cases are implemented. MTA‑MA‑020-R1 and MTA‑MA‑021-R1 provide example use cases with associated cost benefits.

Benefits Description

UAS inspections have multiple benefits over manned inspections, including reducing operations cost, time, and safety risk to inspectors.

Multiple service providers offer UAS inspection services, however, some utilities opt to establish their own program. Benefits of a utility-owned drone inspection program include:

• Increased efficiency that is achieved by a UAS’s ability to reach areas quickly to investigate potential issues and take comprehensive data, such as thermal readings and photographs without needing to hire a service provider.
• For high-frequency, scheduled UAS inspections, the utility will save money performing inspections in-house vs. contracting out the inspection.
• Once established, a UAS program will reduce the administrative burden for conducting drone inspections with in-house resources (e.g., security screening, contract processing).
• Potentially improved capability for follow-up inspections to gather additional information, if needed, because of accessibility of in-house resources.
• Improved monitoring and future trending from data collected.

Costs and Schedule

Cost

Level 3 – Implementation cost is less than $1 million to stand up an internal UAS program for a nuclear fleet that has no prior UAS experience looking to implement a simple UAS program with selected use cases.

With increased complexity (e.g., data governance and analytics) comes increased implementation cost. Some utilities have chosen to implement an enterprise‑wide UAS program (including non‑nuclear facilities) that requires more effort for implementation.

Schedule

A typical UAS program for a nuclear fleet can take 6 to 12 months to implement. However, this schedule can vary based on complexity of the program.

A UAS inspection typically takes less than a day, but will vary depending on scope. The planning involved for a UAS inspection is plant‑ and scope‑specific but is typically less than six months.

Scope Context

Per nuclear fleet

Risks

IT data risks are present when operating UASs, such as automatic upload to an unsecured cloud. Additionally, care must be taken when using UASs so that they remain inside plant boundaries. For example, if the UAS system leaves plant premises during an inspection, non‑plant personnel may be able to retrieve the UAS and access the data stored locally. These risks can be mitigated by taking appropriate measures in selecting and setting up the UAS inspections.

FAA Part 107 licensing is required for outdoor work, and UASs must remain within line of sight of the operator unless a Beyond Line‑of‑Sight permit is obtained. For additional details, see the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) User Guide for Nuclear Power Plants: Implementation Guidance, Technologies, and Applications, and Cost Savings Opportunities (EPRI 3002020913).

A UAS can be limited by battery life, environmental conditions, thermal restrictions, and signal range and can have particular electromagnetic capability (EMC) requirements. Use the reference implementation guidance and UAS‑specific manual and instructions to mitigate these risks.

Additionally, there is a risk of generating foreign material or contaminated material when conducting UAS inspections inside plant components. For example, should a UAS malfunction in a difficult‑to‑access location to the point that it cannot leave the area, the UAS itself may become foreign material. Proper training, appropriate usage, updating relevant foreign material and radiological control procedures, and maintenance of the UAS will mitigate this risk.

SWEEP Score

Category	Level	Description
Cost	3	Expected to be less than $1 million but can vary depending on use cases and scale of implementation (e.g., enterprise‑wide or single facility).
Savings	0	Savings are not evaluated because the technology is an enabler, which does not inherently produce cost savings but permits implementation of other improvements.
Payback	0	No identified payback period since the technology improvement is an enabler. Payback is shared among modernization improvements that will use this enabling technology. For certain use cases, utility experience is that the cost for contracted services was high enough that the UAS equipment can be paid for in the first mission.
Technical Readiness	3	The technology is already in use at commercial nuclear sites.
Licensing Readiness	3	This technology has already been implemented at nuclear power plants and does not require industry regulatory changes.
Implementation Proficiency	3	Implementation of the internal UAS program does not require knowledge in implementing digital technologies, but will require knowledge and piloting experience of a UAS.