Interested contributors have until 15 August 2020 to submit abstracts for an IAEA crowdsourcing competition on innovations that nuclear power plants can use to boost their competitiveness. The innovations should be based on practices already in place at power plants. Selected participants will be invited to present their work at the annual Nuclear Operators’ Forum, planned to be held on the sidelines of the 64th IAEA General Conference, in September 2020.
Delegates at the Innovation for the Future of Nuclear Energy – A Global Forum, in 2019, prioritized the most critical innovation technologies or processes to sustain and advance the current operational fleet of nuclear power plants around the world. These include, but are not limited to:
•digital twinning (the virtual recreation of a process into a computer-based model) to improve performance and to reduce costs;
•advanced manufacturing, including 3D printing, to address supply chain challenges;
•machine learning to make better use of the ‘big data’ already available in the nuclear power sector for optimizing maintenance; and
•using more innovative frameworks for information exchange, to share data on research and development, operations and maintenance.
Building on this work, this year’s Operators’ Forum encourages stakeholders from power plant owners/operators, nuclear utilities, regulators, technical support and R&D organizations to submit an existing innovative project. Submissions must:
•be deployed in at least one operating nuclear power reactor;
•be innovative, clearly linked to a given challenge and able to show tangible impact/benefit;
•include details about how the innovation was deployed;
“In many of our Member States, nuclear power plants are the largest providers of low carbon electricity. Innovation, as embraced by other similar industries, has the potential to ensure the enhanced contribution of nuclear power to the global transition towards integrated energy systems for increased sustainability," said Ed Bradley, Team Leader for Operation and Engineering Support at the IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy.
More information and the submission form for the competition can be found on the Global Forum for Nuclear Innovation Network website.