U.S. NRC Blog

New NRC Digital Control Room Simulator (left to right, Scott Egli, Bill Russell)

The NRC’s Technical Training Center (TTC) located in Chattanooga, Tenn., has completed a major milestone in a project to develop new reactor simulation with the installation and testing of two “generic digital platforms.” A generic digital platform is a fancy way of saying that we have computerized displays and controls capable of mimicking more than one of the new nuclear power plant control rooms that are being developed.

We use simulated control rooms to train NRC licensing and inspection staff on the operation of nuclear power plants.

This milestone is important in the NRC’s development of training for staff to support nuclear power plant licensed operator examinations and inspections at the Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power plants currently under consideration in the US. The AP1000 is a new generation pressurized water reactor with a power rating of 3415 megawatts thermal and an electrical output of at least 1000 megawatts electric.

NRC classroom training for the AP1000 will begin at the TTC in mid-2012 and will be supplemented by control room simulator training in late 2013.