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CNL Awards of Excellence/Distinguished Merit Award: Electrical Site Wide Shutdown Team

Distinguished Merit Award: Electrical Site Wide Shutdown Team

Andrew Blanchard, Dave Buske, Mike Cameron, Adam Corrigan, Sean Enright, Paulo Garcia, Tyler Gauthier, Trevor Keenleyside, Lyall Lafontaise, Mathew McConnell, Brent McLaughlin, Tyler Parr, Belinda Samson, and Dean Tessier

For demonstrating excellence in the conduct of the annual Electrical Site-Wide Shutdown.

For nine years, CNL has conducted an annual Class IV Electrical Site-Wide Shutdown (ESWSD) for maintenance and upgrades at its Chalk River Laboratories site.

The key elements of the ESWSD are the following:

  • The range of activities during this outage are immense – from maintenance of 115 kV transformers and breakers to connection inspections of 115V building distribution panels, and everything in between these voltages and of various electrical components.
  • Impact on the CRL site is immense as a result of the shutdown of Class IV power requiring extensive planning and coordination to avoid unintended consequences.
  • Coordination with a large set of contractors called in to work on proprietary and / or unique equipment as well as supplement our electrical staff.
  • Maintaining the safety of the electrical workers which is complicated by the mix of CNL personnel and the large number of contractor personnel and the complexity of the electrical system, especially with portions still powered by Class III sources.
  • Assurance of Class III power to nuclear facilities and other facilities that cannot be fully shutdown.
  • Conduct of the ESWSD over a weekend to minimize impact on the CRL site’s operation.
  • The ESWSD requires operational control to deal with the coordination needed for the work and for the changes in direction that occur as inspections uncover additional work or tasks that take longer than planned.

The de-energization of the Chalk River Laboratories site allows for great efficiency in accomplishing electrical work. Performing localized isolations while maintaining general operational conditions greatly complicates work. The ESWSD concept allows for completing many jobs in “bundled” form that would have been much more expensive if done individually.

At the completion of each ESWSD, the health of the electrical distribution system is incrementally improved. This improvement comes from needed modifications or repairs to preventive maintenance to reduce the potential for equipment failures. The impact of the ESWSD on the electrical distribution system is readily apparent across all facets of the system.