Nuclear accounts for one-fifth of U.S. electricity generation and half of carbon-free power. There are 94 nuclear reactors at 56 plants in 28 states.
Each reactor core has roughly 150-250 fuel assemblies. Every 18-24 months, spent assemblies are swapped out to maintain production, so new assemblies need to be produced at a fabrication/assembly site. Planning and scheduling of tasks/activities at these sites is often done manually and requires coordination across multiple departments. Fuel assembly specifications, specifically the required enrichment level, may only be issued shortly before desired delivery dates and are unique to each reactor. There is significant demand variability and planning complexity.
MOSIMTEC recently simulated a digital twin for a nuclear fuel fabrication and assembly site to capture complexities/dependencies of the system, enable what if analysis, and develop short-term detailed schedules and long-term capacity plans to meet demand. Developing a new feasible plan now takes a few hours instead of a few weeks. MOSIMTEC simulation modeling can support multiple needs for fabrication site and nuclear power plants – outage planning (scheduled and unscheduled), commissioning/decommissioning plans and more.
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For more information: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/