Nuclear Power Plant Boiler
Boiler Lighting Improvement Project
At one of the largest nuclear facilities in the world located in southwestern Ontario, Canada, they have eight generating units produce over 6000 MW electricity. The first units have been operational since 1976. Facility maintenance is critical to the long-term operation of the generating station.
Maintaining effective lighting around the boiler posed a significant challenge:
- Temperature and vibration conditions around the boiler shorten the life of conventional industrial lighting.
- Lights that fail during unit operation often cannot be replaced until a unit shutdown.
- Ineffective lighting reduces operational safety.
- Lamp replacement (re-lamping) impacts maintenance costs.
The Boiler Inspection & Maintenance Group at nuclear facility launched a Boiler Light Improvement Project. The goal was to find a replacement light source with the following characteristics:
- High-quality light
- Operational in high-temperature locations
- Vibration resistant
- Long life
- Contribute to maintenance improvement at the plant
Nemalux’s proven experience with industrial LED lighting was a good match for the requirements. The alternatives for the lighting were as follows:
- Conventional industrial lighting tolerates temperature and vibration to various degrees depending on the technology used. However, this type of lamping must be replaced well before the lamps have reached their lifespan. Re-lamping for conventional industrial lighting is scheduled during an outage because lighting around the boiler is inaccessible during operation. This adds to maintenance costs.
- LED lighting has the advantage of solid state technology and compact form. LED technology produces high-quality light that can be engineered to provide specific spectrums of light and light intensity. Due to its solid state design, LED’s are inherently less susceptible to vibration than the other lighting alternatives and can easily be housed in a ruggedized fixture.
After meeting with the boiler maintenance engineers, Nemalux recommended our CANLED lighting system custom engineered for the boiler application.
- Maintenance engineers at assembled a prototype CANLED light for use inside the boiler primary head.
- The prototype was tested for 6 months at industrial temperatures.
Upon the completion of successful testing, they ordered 12 more turnkey CANLED assemblies with the following criteria:
- LED cool white light
- Machined aluminum housing
- Rated for Class 1, Division 2
- 24VDC power
- Threaded connection between light and Manfrotto swivel bracket
- Lanyard with a 2-step release snap-hook / carabineer
- 16AWG water resistant cable all the way to power supply
- Proprietary triple back-up systems
Products Featured In This Case Study
A durable, robust industrial lighting solution with a long life.