MTA-RP-001

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Administrative Items
Date	12/15/2020
Functional Area Where Benefits Will Be Realized	Radiation Protection Operations Engineering
Reference Implementation Guidance	Application of Remote Monitoring Technologies to Risk-Inform Condition Based Radiological Surveys (EPRI 3002016346)
Industry SME	EPRI Chemistry and Radiation Safety Contact: NuclearPlantMod@epri.com
Previous Implementation	Please contact EPRI for implementation examples and contacts.
Implementation Enablers	MTA-MA-003 – Implement a Wireless Network Infrastructure Using a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) MTA-MA-004 – Implement a Wireless Network Infrastructure Using WiFi
Applicability	All reactor types All geographic regions
Keywords	Radiological survey; Radiation survey; Remote Monitoring Technology (RMT); Radiation RMT
Business Case Analysis Cross-Reference	N/A

Description

Nuclear power plants conduct routine, manual radiation surveys throughout the plant to inform workers of radiological conditions. These surveys help inform decision making and support radiation protection actions. Commercially available Radiation Remote Monitoring Technologies (RMT) can measure radiation dose rates and transmit the data to a database. The data can be viewed in real‑time to inform plant personnel of the radiological conditions and trended over time to inform radiation protection operations.

Radiation RMT networks can be used to conduct risk‑informed or condition‑based manual radiological surveys. In other words, manual surveys can be performed when the radiation RMT indicate that they may be needed instead of on a routine, schedule‑based frequency. In this way, costs associated with conducting manual surveys can be reduced. Using this strategy could provide more frequent data regarding radiological conditions, which can be used to enhance ALARA and radiation protection.

Benefits

Benefits Estimate

Level 1 – Savings associated with time saved from conducting manual radiological surveys is less than $1 million per year.

Benefits Description

• Reduction of staff hours required to perform manual surveys.
• Increased frequency of data to inform decision making and detect changes to reduce radiation exposures of workers.
• Increased efficiency of ALARA planning for outages.
• Increased ability to understand and predict changes in normal plant operations using real‑time radiological data from the radiation RMT network.
• Reduced radiation exposure due to reduced entries into radiation areas.

Costs and Schedule

Cost

Level 2 – Implementation cost to procure equipment and develop an RMT program is typically greater than $1 million but less than $5 million.

Schedule

Complete program development could be accomplished in 6 to 12 months.

Scope Context

Site‑wide

Risks

Experience with radiation RMT has shown that additional effort may be required for adjustments in the implementation procedures to eliminate or address spurious indications of out‑of‑specification radiation levels. These indications may be from normal instrument variation or sensitivity due to very low radiation source term in some areas. These risks will decrease as industry experience with radiation RMT increases and best practices are developed.

Automation of surveys can increase workload on plant personnel related to instrumentation calibration and source checks, particularly during the early stages of implementation while baseline data are collected. To mitigate this risk, efficient strategies for calibration and source checking instrumentation will need to be developed during implementation.

SWEEP Score

Category	Level	Description
Cost	2	Procurement and installation of RMT sensors in combination with other software and programmatic costs should be greater than $1 million and less than $5 million.
Savings	1	Savings achieved through the reduction in manual surveys are generally expected to be $1 million or less per year.
Payback	2	Based upon estimated cost and savings information, the payback period would be between one and five years.
Licensing Readiness	3	This technology has already been piloted at nuclear power plants and requires no licensing changes.
Technology Readiness	2	The technology is commercially available for gamma radiation and air contamination and has already been implemented at nuclear sites. Technologies for remotely monitoring beta radiation, neutron radiation, and surface contamination are not currently available.
Implementation Proficiency	2	The implementation of this technology can be implemented by a plant with site‑wide data transmission network. Many nuclear plants are familiar with radiation RMT.