Carl, see Jay’s response below.

Duane Gore

Supervisor, Reactor Engineering

STPNOC

(361) 972-8909

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From: Eichenlaub, Jay
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:43 AM
To: Gore, Duane
Subject: RE: HELP! Question About Fuel Handling Practices

Reactor Engineering sets the initial setpoints at the beginning of cycle.  We have over the years reduced to setpoint from the F-Spec maximum down to where we started to see spurious alarms.  These setpoints usually work for the whole outage.  We confirm the expected weight with the first assembly and verify that the current setpoints are within F-Spec limits based on the actual weight of the first assembly. We see shifts in indicated weights between and during outages.  If we are outside F-Spec, we stop and reset based on actual weights.  If we are within F-Spec, but higher or lower than optimum, then we will discuss with the CLS and come to a consensus.  If we are within F-Spec it is difficult to make a case to stop and optimize. However, the CLS has the ultimate call as long as we are within F-Spec.  We don’t get too concerned with the underload during core offload or the overload during reload.  If optimization is desire, we will make an adjustment during the defueled window or if we have a long stop in fuel movement.

Jay Eichenlaub

Reactor Engineering

361-972-7745

Beeper 0689

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From: Gore, Duane
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 6:30 AM
To: Eichenlaub, Jay
Subject: FW: HELP! Question About Fuel Handling Practices

So who really makes this call here? Really a consensus with us and Refuel?

Duane Gore

Supervisor, Reactor Engineering

STPNOC

(361) 972-8909

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From: respvr@retaqs.com [mailto:respvr@retaqs.com] On Behalf Of Fago, Carl D
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 5:07 PM
To: RE Supervisors
Subject: [Respvr] HELP! Question About Fuel Handling Practices

Oconee is in week #2 of our E&A and a question has arisen that I could use some benchmarking help with.  Specifically, during offload or reload, who makes the decision to increase / decrease the overload / underload setpoint (within the fuel vendor handling limits) on the fuel crane? We have a Refueling SRO on the bridge and a fuel handler (operating the bridge and mast crane). We let these two make the decision on what’s needed within strict limits that are provided in technical procedures that they are trained on.  (Any very rate instance that we may need to go outside the vendor limits would have significantly higher approval level and would involve the fuel vendor in the decision process ... this would represent an “event”.)

For your fleet / site, do you do something similar? Do you have a higher level of approval? If you have a higher level of approval required, how often do you encounter the need to increase / decrease the setpoint (within the fuel vendor handling specification limits)?  Or, perhaps your overload / underload setpoints are at the vendor limits?

Any quick turnaround answer or a contact name / number would be very much appreciated!

Carl

Carl D. Fago

Reactor Engineering Supervisor

Oconee Nuclear Station

Duke Energy Carolinas

Phone:  (864) 885-3047

Fax:  (864) 885-3374

Email:  cdfago@duke-energy.com