Nuclear Power Solutions

Proven | Integrated | Market-leading

Nuclear power plant after sunset. Dusk landscape with big chimneys.

- Biomass
- Biomass
- Coal
- Coal
- Hydroelectric
- Hydroelectric
- Natural Gas
- Natural Gas
- Nuclear Power
- Nuclear Power
- Renewable Energy
- Renewable Energy
- Solar
- Solar
- Wind
- Wind

The Nuclear Energy Sector is Changing Rapidly

Demand for electricity is surging worldwide, fueled by the expansion of AI data centers, adoption of electric vehicles, overall population growth, and more. Some countries also seek to lower greenhouse gas emissions and reach US and international decarbonization mandates. All at a time when commercial nuclear power plants around the world are approaching the end of their initial operating licenses.

To help meet demand, many nuclear plants have sought to extend their operating licenses while many countries accelerate plans to build conventional and next-generation nuclear power plants for capacity replacement and growth.

Major technology advancements like Generation III+ conventional reactors and Generation IV Small Modular Reactors (SMR) are changing how enterprises across the nuclear power industry and its value chain plan.

Opportunities across the nuclear energy sector have never been greater.

Meeting the Opportunity

Conventional light water reactor nuclear plants, along with fuel conversion and fabrication companies, must navigate changing technologies and regulations while balancing the following objectives.

Accelerate Time to Market
Avoid delays in outage projects, upgrade programs and new capacity investments and their resultant costs through enhanced, integrated planning of regulatory compliance and other requirements.

Optimize Lifecycle Costs
Proactively manage the development, qualification testing, commissioning and management of power-island controls, traditionally an area of concentrated cost in nuclear operations.

Improve Reliability
Enhance reliability by leveraging global networks of technical support, implementation and after-sale service resources.

Enhance Security
Provide advanced cybersecurity capabilities to help protect against increased threat vector complexity and severity without impeding your ability to get data to the people who need the information.

Modernize Operations Technologies
Upgrade from legacy Distributed Control Systems (DCS), and associated drives, motor controls, actuators and other equipment which may be obsolete or non-supported to mitigate risks to safety incidents and minimize downtime across balance-of-plant systems.

Enable Workforce
Enable team members to focus on higher-value activities by leveraging autonomous controls.

Increase Control Intelligence
Integrate and streamline controls to implement modern, scalable operating architectures.

Streamline Safety
Introduce a safety solution with the same development environment as the plant DCS. This allows a common security and alarming mechanism, reducing complexity and in turn reducing risk.

Rockwell Automation Helps Plant Operators Achieve Objectives Sooner by Leveraging Nuclear Expertise and Capabilities

Rockwell Automation offers a proven, integrated, plant-wide portfolio of market-leading intelligent control technologies and solutions ideal for safely and reliably generating power. We are the control system of choice for processes involved in manufacturing nuclear fuel. Our modular, secure and scalable control platform enables nuclear fuel-fabrication firms and SMR manufacturers to accelerate speed-to-market while reducing total cost of ownership and mitigating security risks.

Unlike competitive offerings that have nonstandard offerings for the control system that is diverse and hard to find support for, customers with Rockwell Automation in their plant enjoy shorter learning curves, a reduced need for spare parts, and common approaches to security and alarming.

Rockwell Automation is involved at nearly every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle including mining, conversion, and fuel fabrication. We understand how fabrication facilities operate, the success factors for national labs, and the critical operations associated with enrichment and conversion.

Because of this experience, we have developed deep knowledge of ISO standards, federal regulatory codes, and requirements governing the manufacture of commercial nuclear fuel and nuclear power-plant components.

With a wide range of offerings, we can help optimize your equipment with on-prem solutions. We also offer anomaly detection offerings to help predict equipment failures. Do you have challenges with things like predicting the life remaining in your fuel? Let us help.

Supporting the Nuclear Power Industry Worldwide

Rockwell Automation is a US-based company with more distribution in North America than any other DCS platform, and a larger integrator network than any DCS vendor, making support much easier to find and staff. Globally, we offer a large network of systems integrators, distributors, and OEM partners to support your nuclear power projects. You benefit from global expertise delivered at the local level.

280

Distributors

3,700+

System integrators

3,500

OEM partners

130+

Strategic technology and digital partners

Rockwell’s Integrated Automation Portfolio for Nuclear Energy

Automation

As the world’s largest company focusing solely on automation, Rockwell Automation provides an extensive automation portfolio with market and application-specific offerings in industries that impact public safety and critical infrastructure.

Cybersecurity

With a Rockwell Automation system, it doesn’t matter if you are doing high-speed control on the power island, running the process control DCS, safety system or even a skid attached to the process. The same security mechanism securely transports information between controllers, DCS and things like Motor Control Center (MCC) equipment with device level security on top of a secured network.

Predictive and Advanced Control

Edge AI solutions
Cloud AI solutions
Digital Twins
Intelligent Motor Control Centers and VFDs
In-chassis modules for custom applications and Model Predictive Control (MPC)
On-prem, server-based Advanced Process Control (APC) solutions to solve complex process problems using a neural network
Soft Sensors to predict values that are hard to measure or act as a backup to physical sensors

Digital Transformation

We offer digital tools that monetize your investments in automation by connecting plant operating IT and OT systems for generation efficiency, optimizing plant performance, and enabling faster, better operations and decision-making.

While safety and cybersecurity are our top priorities, we also recognize the need to get data to the right people, so Rockwell Automation provides multiple secure methods to support your process information needs.

Regulatory Compliance

Industrial control systems that are well-aligned with data collection and process management needs, and that are compatible with NRC, NERC and NIST guidelines.

New Nuclear is Modular

Rockwell Automation offers a modular, secure and scalable control platform with integrated intelligent data applications to enable nuclear fuel-fabrication firms and SMR system manufacturers, and owner / operators to accelerate speed-to-market while reducing total cost of ownership, managing IT/OT security risks, and avoiding the costs and lengthy timelines involved with developing SMR control and automation systems in-house.

We help SMR manufacturers avoid purpose-built, high-cost control and automation systems by leveraging automation systems that are already controlling common industrial processes around the world.

Our common security model means SMR fleets use the same security model that is in use in the main parts of today's larger nuclear processes.

Rockwell Automation enables SMR owners and operators to meet federal regulatory codes, design modular reactor systems that are easily integrated utilizing our highly scalable controls systems platform and design tools, develop first article systems that easily redeploy while maintaining version control, and protect networks against increased threat vector complexity and severity.

Rockwell Automation Helps You:

Get to market sooner

In many projects, skid or system integration can be the largest cost in engineering hours. With our scalable solution, the small skids and separate systems can easily be brought together using our common configuration environment, alarm system and security models.

Mitigate risk

We offer a wide range of cybersecurity offerings by embedding security not only at the network level, but also embedded in the Rockwell devices themselves. By using common development tools, security, and communications we inherently reduce complexity and risk.

Optimize costs

Avoid the typical costs involved with large engineering teams developing control and automation systems in-house. Our commercial, off-the-shelf controls and power solutions are quicker to deploy and reduce integration costs.

Supporting your business model

We know you not only need people to help develop your systems, but also need to find resources to support them in potentially remote areas for staffing the plants, remote support from System Integrators and a good distribution network to make sure you have access to parts.

How Can We Help You Succeed?

Ready to talk to a Rockwell Automation consultant?

We offer industry expertise to help design, implement and support your automation investment.

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