Ready for dismantling
ENBW Kernkraft GmbH
About the customer
EnBW is one of the largest energy supply companies in Germany and Europe. With around 23,000 employees, the company supplies 5.5 million customers with electricity, gas, water and energy-related products and services. As part of the energy transition, Germany has decided to phase out nuclear power by 2022. Operation and residual operation as well as decommissioning and dismantling of the five nuclear power plants are in the hands of the subsidiary, EnBW Kernkraft GmbH (EnKK).
Neckarwestheim II may continue to produce electricity until the end of 2022 at the latest. The dismantling of this plant has been applied for and is to begin after its final shutdown. The remaining four plants no longer generate electricity. Three of them are already being dismantled: Obrigheim since 2008, Neckarwestheim I and Philippsburg 1 since 2017. The decommissioning and dismantling permit for Philippsburg 2 was issued in December 2019, so dismantling could also begin there during 2020. Despite all economic constraints, the protection of personnel from radiation exposure, the protection of the population and the environment, and the safe disposal of radioactive waste remain the primary goals for dismantling.
Challenge
To cope with the tasks of dismantling nuclear facilities, operators have to prepare for changed respectively new core processes. The requirements for planning and execution of a decommissioning project are different from those for operation.
In this context, the supporting IT systems, which have so far been oriented to the requirements of power operation, must also be adapted, further developed or supplemented accordingly. In addition to the purely technical requirements of plant dismantling, the IT departments of the operators must also keep in mind the group’s requirements with regard to future consolidation of the IT application landscape, cost reduction, and standardization and harmonization of the processes for residual material and waste tracking at individual sites when designing the system adaptations.
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Solution
As a solution, the development project “EnKK ReVK” (EnKK residual material tracking and control) was started together with RODIAS GmbH. From the beginning, great importance was attached to an iterative, agile project approach with the objective of using partial functionalities productively as early as possible and being able to incorporate the experience gained directly into the further development process. Thus, the first functionalities of the container management system were already in productive use about three months after the start of the project. During the course of the project, a portfolio of functionalities was created under constant reflection of the work results, which completely covers all requirements for residual material tracking and control.
The system covers all concerns of residual material and waste tracking, both in power operation and in plant dismantling. The development of integrated applications for mobile systems (barcode-supported container registration, transport confirmation, warehouse disposition) also significantly improves efficiency when working with the system.