UAE 바라카 원전건설, 중요 국면 진입 UAE nuclear project enters critical phase

UAE nuclear project enters critical phase

UAE 바라카 원전건설, 중요 단계 진입 

The UAE’s first nuclear reactor at Barakah is expected to be operational by 2017. Courtesy Enec

edited by kcontents 

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UAE의 원전 건설계획은 원전 에너지 신흥국의 한 모델로서 세계적인 산업영향으로 인해 지연되어 왔으며 2017년 말에 첫 원전을 가동해야 하는 가장 큰 도전에 직면해 있다.  에미리트 원자력 공사는 2012년 바라카 원전을 착수한 이후 중요 마일스톤(고비)들을 극복해 왔다. 그리고 올 6월에는 2호기의 원자로 설치에 성공했다. 그렇지만 이제 아랍에미레이트의 원전계획은 가장 어려운 단계에 직면해 있다. 상호 연결된 수많은 도전 과제들은 잘못하면 공사의 지연을 의미하기도 하다. 원전건설계획은 시공에만 20억불이 넘게 투자되고 있지만 완공 후 60년 이상 운영하기 위해 20억불이 추가로 소요된다. 바라카 원전은 2020년까지 증가하고 있는 수요량의 25% 정도의 전기를 생산할 것으로 예상하고 있다. 단 4개 원전이 완전히 풀 가동했을 경우다. 원전건설을 계획하고 있는 많은 중동국가들의 중요한 사례로서 UAE 원전의 중요성은 더욱더 부각되고 있다. "UAE원전은 계획한 지 27년만에 첫 건설이 시작된 매우 특별한 케이스로 꼽힌 만큼 시작 초기에 수많은 정밀한 조사와 검토를 받았다" 고 IAEA의 원전엔지니어 마르타 페라리는 말한다.  원전 1호기가 약75%의 공정진척도에 예산과 공기를 준수해 만족하지만 나머지 25%의 마지막 단계는 그리 쉽지 않은 공정이 될 것으로 건설관련 책임자들은 말하고 있다. 마지막 공정은 수많은 복합공종들이 보다더 정밀하고복잡하게 결합되는 과정이기 때문이다. 바라카 원전의 가장 중요한 당면한 문제들은  우선, 한국의 주계약자인 한전은 바라카원전과 동일 모델인 신고리원전의 APR-1400 프로토타입(시제품)을 설치하는데 있어서 일련의 많은 난관들을 경험해왔다. 바라카 원전은 현재 올해 말 준공되는 신고리 3,4호기의 기본 운영지침과 밀접하게 관련되어 있다. 만약 신고리 원전 건설계획에 차질이 생기는 경우 바라카원전도 계약조건에 따라 재무적 페널티를 물도록 되어 있다. 둘째, UAE 연방원자력규제기구(FANR)의 일시에 많은 원전 책임자급 배치에 따른 직원들에 대한 예산 압박도 받고 있다. 그렇지만 FANR는 만일 예산때문에 인원을 줄이는 경우 건설계획에 차질이 있을 수 있다고 입을 모아 말하고 있다. 마지막으로  이미 이 원전의 마지막 단계는 UAE의 특이한 시스템과 여러나라 출신의 책임자급 직원들로 인해 복잡하게 얽혀 있으며 또 수용해서는 안되는 여러가지 요소들도 잠재되어 있다는 사실이다. 바라카 원전을 위협하는 가장 주된 요인은 신고리 원전건설에서 불량 또는 가짜 부품들로 인해 1년 이상 지연되었으며 가동일 또한 불확실하게 됐다는 사실이다. 신고리 원전은 테스트에서 불합격한 JS케이블사가 시공한 안전관련 통제케이블 설치 이후인 2013년에 이미 지연됐다. 부품시험성적서의 위조로 3,4호기는 각각 올해 말 및 내년으로 가동이 연기됐다. 그리고 작년 11월 발생한 니트로겐가스 누출사고로 한국의 플랜트 오퍼레이터 3명이 사망한 사고도 추가의 지연 원인이다. - 이하 중략 - by Ki Chul Hwang  Conpaper  Editor Distributor  황기철  콘페이퍼 에디터

 

UAE 연방원자력규제기구(FANR)가 바라카원전을 점검하고 있다.

Anthony McAuley 

July 7, 2015 

The UAE’s nuclear energy programme, which has been held up by the industry worldwide as a model for newcomers to nuclear energy, is facing its biggest challenges in the run in to its first reactor’s start-up, scheduled for late 2017.

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec) has so far hit all of its milestones since construction began on the US$20 billion programme in 2012, and in June installed the plant’s second reactor vessel at the Baarakah site in Abu Dhabi’s remote Western Region.

Now, however, the UAE’s programme moves into its most difficult final phase for the first reactor, in which a number of interlinked challenges could mean delays, according to well-placed sources.

The programme, which has a building budget in excess of $20bn, with another $20bn estimated cost to run the plant over its 60-year life according to figures reported in the media in 2009 at the time that tenders were being awarded, is strategically important for the UAE. It expects to generate up to 25 per cent of its growing electricity demand from nuclear power by 2020, when all four of its reactors are due to be fully operational.

The programme is also being closely scrutinised as an exemplar for the whole of the Middle East, where a number of countries are keen to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

“The UAE nuclear programme is very special as it is the first newcomer to start building in 27 years,” said Marta Ferrari, a nuclear engineer in the Nuclear Power Infrastructure Group of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. “Being the first in a long time, it was bound to get a lot of scrutiny and attention,” she added.

Although the first reactor is nearly 75 per cent complete and is on time and on budget, industry executives said that the last phase would be the toughest.

“With a nuclear plant it gets a lot more complicated at the end when all the pieces have to come together,” said an executive who was until recently one of Enec’s senior division heads, and who did not want to be quoted by name.

“The first 80 to 90 per cent is pretty standard construction,” added the local head of a Barakah subcontractor. “The last bit is the really hard part.”

As the project moves into that final stage, it faces three related issues that could cause delays and add costs, several industry executives said.

The first and most problematic challenge for Barakah is the fact that its prime contractor, Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco), has run into a series of difficulties at Shin Kori, 450 kilometres south-east of Seoul, where it is developing the prototype project for its APR-1400 reactor, the same model it is building at Barakah.

Barakah is reliant on Shin Kori reactors 3&4 for its operating procedures template, a crucial connection that is reflected in the fact that Kepco faces financial penalties under its Barakah contract if it misses milestones on the Shin Kori programme.

Second, the UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) is coming under budget pressure at a time when it should be adding staff, according to a number of senior nuclear executives. FANR executives said privately that budget cuts would slow down the programme at some point.

Finally, the already complex final stage of any new nuclear programme is complicated further by the fact that the UAE uniquely blends systems and senior staff from a range of countries, and has other unique features that have to be accommodated.

The main threat to keeping Barakah on schedule is the fact that a combination of fraud and faulty parts has meant that Kepco’s Shin Kori 3&4 have been delayed by more than a year, and a start-up date remains uncertain.

“The UAE, certainly in order to meet the project timelines, is tied to the Korean procedures and processes across the board,” said the former Enec division head. “There had to be some changes to Barakah to account for the differences in seawater temperature, the dusty environment, and the high ambient summer air temperature ... and a different electrical system [but] the UAE plants are built on the same basic design.”

The Shin Kori project was already delayed in 2013 after safety-related control cabling installed by a Korean company, JS Cable, failed various tests. That came on the heels of an investigation that found falsified documentation on cabling on parts of the project and delayed start-up on Shin Kori reactors 3&4 to 2015 and 2016, respectively.

There were even further delays after a test run of Shin Kori 3 last November resulted in a nitrogen gas leak that killed three workers at Korea Hydro & Electric Power (KHEP), the plant operator.

South Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission held two hearings in April but has deferred a decision about Shin Kori 3 until after it can determine if the problem has been fixed, according to Yonhap, South Korea’s state-funded news agency.

A new start-up date cannot be determined until the Korean companies negotiate with General Electric of the US, which has recalled the faulty valves that caused the November leak, Yonhap reported.

“GE expects the replacement process may take five or six months, but a specific time will be confirmed after we complete negotiations with the company,” KHEP said in April. “We will dispatch engineers and other staff to the GE factory to monitor the process, and install new components as soon as possible to receive the operational licence.”

GE was not able to say when the faulty parts would be replaced.

A spokesman for Enec said: “It is important to note that the units in Barakah do not share the components that caused delays in the reference plant, so there is no impact to the construction of the plants. Therefore, the development of Shin Kori 3 is a Korean domestic matter and Kepco is working under the strict guidelines of the Korean nuclear regulator to obtain its operational licence.”

But several people involved in Barakah said getting approval of the safety procedures could be delayed even if the supply chain for the parts is different for the UAE project. The former Enec division head said “the most significant impact that could occur at this point would be if [the Korean regulator] or FANR found a problem with the Shin Kori 3 safety analysis”.

Already, the Korean regulator has failed to pass Shin Kori 3 on several occasions because of the faulty parts and it will be extra vigilant after the deaths of plant workers. Kepco, meanwhile, has an agreement with Enec to run Shin Kori-3 by September to demonstrate that it is fully operational, or it must pay penalties if it fails to do so.

Enec said that while it works with reputed entities across the world in a variety of specialised fields, such as legal, it has not been interviewing any law firms in relation to legal action.

The nuclear project’s most challenging phase also comes at a time when UAE government agencies, including FANR, are under budget pressure after last year’s sharp drop in oil prices.

FANR’s budget last year was Dh219.89 million, with staff levels of about 190, and senior industry people said it should be adding resources rather than contemplating cuts.

Christer Viktorsson, a Swedish/Finnish dual national who took over as FANR’s director general last month from founding director William Travers, an American, said: “FANR has all the competent staff and resources it needs at the present time to properly review the operating licence application for the first reactor at Barakah Nuclear Power Plant. That is for sure.”

http://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/uae-nuclear-project-enters-critical-phase#full

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