The promise of digital in nuclear

The recent breakthrough in fusion technology has shone a new light and created excitement within the nuclear industry, even if its potential has only so far been demonstrated on a small scale. This development, combined with the ongoing need for energy security and affordability, has resulted in clear cross-political party support for new technologies in the UK.

Of course, we all know that nuclear power plants remain a construction, design and knowledge management challenge, as shown by frequent overruns and mounting costs .costs. However, key technologies—already available to us—could deliver quicker, cheaper nuclear power in the coming years.

How digital can address the project challenges

The starting point is how do we deliver on the types of challenges the industry is already facing.

What we frequently hear from nuclear engineers and operators is that they want to make decisions based on a controlled view of data, record delivery against their shared project plan, and ensure regulatory compliance without creating burdensome procedures. All these processes are better enabled through the use of digital.

Some examples of key capabilities that could be delivered through current technologies and make a tangible difference to new nuclear in the next 5-10 years include:

● Using 3D models to design, develop and test the project before construction commences.

● Keeping costs down by updating technical specifications digitally so that they can be embedded in project management from an early stage.

● Allowing management to review delivery in real-time and remotely so that mistakes can be identified early.

● Enabling collaboration and consistency for the many different partners working across a project by having a single version of the truth ‘the digital thread’ across the project.

These are the kind of capabilities that will help government, operators and regulators avoid the pitfalls of previous projects at the exact point at which we seek to deliver new nuclear in the UK. Using digital technologies, even in the context of a single nuclear plant, will benefit hugely both in terms of costs reduction and speed of delivery.

Investment in the workforce

Building out digital capabilities must be an essential element of the UK’s future ambitions on nuclear. However, to fully harness its power, the nuclear industry needs to ensure it is appealing to the workforce of the future, and that it is upskilling its current workforce on digital and other emerging technologies.

This could include, for example, conducting training in a digital environment, such as in a virtual or augmented reality. This will increase confidence, enhance learning and skills, as well as improving safety for the individuals involved.

In addition, learning from mistakes in the digital environment can help employees overcome challenges in a way that would be costly and dangerous if they were to happen on-site.

Using digital capability will not only encourage and attract a new wave of talent to the sector but will also speed up development times on projects as it allows mistakes to be made and corrected in the digital environment first.

Learning from other industries

When it comes to applying digital, collaboration is key—and nuclear can learn from other industries. For example, the aerospace and automotive industries have been collaborating with their supply chains on designing, modelling, and simulating on a single platform through a virtual twin—as seen with Dassault Systèmes work with Airbus.

Virtual twins go beyond the concept of digital twins. Digital twins are simply a digital form of an object, its virtual version. However, virtual twins provide the ability to 3D model everything around you and then test and simulate to ensure your model is perfected.

Technologies such as virtual twins can help manage knowledge and coordinate learnings from complex engineering methods across sectors by storing information on one place, accessible to all those who need it.

Using tried and tested approaches from other industries will allow nuclear players to increase their competitive advantage by accelerating processes and facilitating new ways of working. It also allows for mistakes made by other sectors to be bypassed, creating more time for creativity and success.

Digital solutions must be fit for purpose

There are limited examples within the nuclear industry of virtual twins being used to accelerate project progress.

It’s therefore important to establish what the key questions are regarding where new technologies can offer the most benefits. There is a clear need to identify problems before offering solutions related to how digital tools can help solve them.

Solutions such as task automation can have a huge benefit for nuclear—allowing complex operations to be optimised in the digital environment. Schedule optimisation connects top-down planning with emergent issues, determining risk to operations and operators in the 4D reality. Scheduled operations can then be assessed for human factors planning, tailoring individuals for operations to ensure safe completion, and support the home-safe objective.

Virtual twin technology can also play a role in promoting efficiencies and more effective ways of working with new technologies such as fusion and small modular reactors.

When looking forward to the future of the nuclear industry, it’s important to remember that digital solutions and expertise are crucial to pushing the boundaries of sustainable innovation, collaboration, and production.

Only by removing the burden of cumbersome administration and data processing tasks will the workforce of tomorrow be able to focus on activities that add value, such as problem-solving, governance and safety critical areas. Digital technologies will help empower stakeholders within the industry with collaborative, innovative solutions to do that, propelling the nuclear sector forward towards the UK’s net zero targets.