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The Lungmen Nuclear Power Project (LMNPP), under construction in Taiwan, consists of two GE Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) units, each with 1350 MW electrical output. Major Human-System Interfaces (HSIs) of LMNPP are different from traditional operating BWRs or ABWRs. Video display units (VDUs) are the main human-system interface for operators to manipulate and to know the status of the equipment and plant information. Based upon NUREG-0711, the applicable human factors engineering (HFE) guideline in the design of HSIs has been adopted. An important aspect of the Lungmen HFE program has been the direct involvement of the end user, Taiwan Power Company (TPC), throughout the design development and implementation to ensure that the process for the design is compliant with the HFE principles, and that the necessary displays, control, and alarms are provided to support the identified personnel tasks. This paper reviews the applicable HFE principles and the HSI design process including verification and validation (V&V) process in the design of HSIs for the LMNPP. This paper also presents three topics of interest in the LMNPP HSI design development and implementation process-validation with simulator, alarm auto reset, and VDU operational configuration strategy. The objective for developing the VDU operational configuration strategy was, after appropriate V&V, to reinforce operation discipline and optimize operator crew task assignments and workload during typical operations, and to confirm the need for an intensive training program that addresses the knowledge and skill requirements of the operators to meet the task characteristics and the responses of the plant processes. The results to date and implications for going forward from this process are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a practical case for the safety assessment of ground grid design at 161/69-kV indoor-type and out- door-type substations in the system of Taiwan Power Company (TPC). For a substation grounding system to be safe, the touch and step voltages should be limited below the minimum tolerable voltages. Since the mesh voltage is usually the worst possible touch voltage inside an ac substation (excluding transferred potentials), the mesh voltage is used as the criteria for a safe ground grid design. In other words, safety assessment of a ground grid design at 161/69-kV indoor-type and outdoor-type substations in the TPC system is referred to as a procedure by which the mesh and step voltages at substations are computed and compared to the minimum touch and step voltages. Computation results of safety assessment for humans with 50- and 70-kg body weight are quantified in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper developed an approach based on data envelopment analysis and Malmquist productivity index to investigate the performance of power plants and conducted an empirical study with eight thermal power plants in Taiwan. The analysis resuIts show the productivity improvements, and thus, help Taiwan Power Company to monitor and diagnose changes in the productivity of its thermal power plants. Furthermore, this study also provides specific directions for improvements to increase competitiveness in the face of the continuing liberalization of the Taiwanese power generation market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance the cost effectiveness of the distribution automation system (DAS), this paper proposes the immune algorithm (IA) to derive the optimal placement of switching devices by minimizing the total cost of customer service outage and investment cost of line switches. The reliability index of each service zone defined by the boundary switches is derived to solve the expected energy not served due to fault contingency, and the customer interruption cost is then determined according to the customer type and power consumption within the service zone. To demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed IA methodology to solve the optimal placement of line switches, a practical distribution system of Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) is selected for computer simulation to explore the cost benefit of line switch placement for DAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an alternative data envelopment analysis method to explore the efficiency, the resource allocation, and the benchmarks of the electricity distribution districts (EDD5) of Taiwan Power Company in 2003. Several empirical results are shown: 1) the EDDs covering the high-tech industry park are more efficient, on average, than ones involved in the nonhigh-tech industry park; 2) the EDDs located in urban areas outperform those located in rural areas; 3) the large-sized EDDs generally are more able to integrate their resources and to operate efficiently; 4) the benchmark-share measure shows that while small-size efficient EDDs can easily become benchmarks, large-size efficient EDDs are deemed as competitive niche players; and finally, 5) the effect on these EDDs merging their activities should be investigated to explore the possibility of increasing competitive advantage in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]