IEEE and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have announced the joint publication of new international guidelines for condition monitoring of electrical equipment installed in nuclear power plants. The organisations have also published three affiliated standards detailing specific techniques that can be used to perform the condition monitoring evaluations. The IEC prepares and publishes international standards for all electrotechnologies.
The series of international standards and guidelines, IEC/IEEE 62582, Nuclear power plants -Instrumentation and control important to safety—Electrical equipment condition monitoring methods, is intended for use by nuclear power plant operators, system evaluators, test laboratories and licensees of nuclear power plants.
The standards are said to be particularly important because they focus on condition monitoring of electrical equipment that performs vital nuclear power plant safety functions. A very important application is condition monitoring of electrical cables, which not only provide power needed to operate electrical equipment in nuclear power plants but also transmit signals to and from the various instrumentation and control equipment that performs safety and accident mitigation functions.
The IEC and the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) collaborated extensively to develop these standards to promote international uniformity in the practice of electrical equipment condition monitoring. The IEC/IEEE 62582 series of standards was published under a joint agreement between IEC and IEEE, which was put in place in 2008 to foster the harmonisation of technology standards used in different regions and regulatory environments.
The use of standardised condition monitoring approaches and techniques is said to have many benefits for nuclear power plant operators. Such methods yield compatibilities for data collected from various sites and regions, facilitate the exchange of information and experiences, make it possible to build databases characterising the condition of monitored equipment over time, and encourage the broad acceptance of results.
