C-E productivity improvement program

This paper describes the C-E Productivity Improvement Program (CEPIP), which is a computer algorithm for heat rate monitoring and diagnostics for a nuclear power plant. CEPIP uses the pattern recognition technique to identify cause(s) of heat rate degradation. The benefits of such an automated program to the plant performance engineer include early identification of the degrading component(s), provision of necessary economic information (cost of energy loss) to the performance engineer so that he can decide when to repair the degrading components, and identification of operator actions resulting in heat rate degradation (such as closing the valve on the live steam extraction line for the second stage of reheat). In summary, CEPIP improves the overall plant performance by increasing the capacity factor. CEPIP was developed to meet the growing needs of the utilities for an automated performance program. The diagnostic capability has been verified by plant data