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Qinshan Nuclear Power Station has installed passive ultra-high frequencyRFIDTags and readers to identify the location of thousands of employees, help locate employees in emergency situations and prevent people from entering unauthorized areas. Since installing the solution last year, the system provider Sun International said the company has also used the technology to verify employees’ working hours.
Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant, located 100 kilometers southwest of Shanghai, is one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world, with nine reactors covering an area of 10 square kilometers. Typically 7,000 employees and contractors work on site every day.
China’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) stipulates that nuclear facilities must be able to monitor the location of personnel during evacuation. This is usually done with pen-and-paper artificial light recording. Hundreds of employees serve as emergency managers, each responsible for a specific muster point. At each meeting point, employees from that area will gather there and take the bus to leave the site. Emergency managers write down each person’s name and compare it to the list. However, this process was quite time consuming and very error prone (due to people not being on site and not reporting to the assembly point).
Founded 20 years ago, Sun International is headquartered in Georgia with offices in Washington and Wuxi, and in 2009 began to improve solutions based on RFID technology. According to Yaojun Sun, founder and CEO of Sun International, the company focuses on providing smart nuclear power plant solutions.
The company has been researching and developing the solution for several years and tested it at the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant in mid-2013. Qinshan Nuclear Power Station has four independent power stations, and the system was deployed in one of the power stations in October 2014 and has been extended to use in the other three power stations.
Each nuclear power plant has 4 to 5 areas, each of which is 1 square kilometer in size. In the first plant to install the technology, Sun International installed a total of 30 Impinj R420 readers and 100 antennas at key locations (area entrances, emergency areas, etc.) to ensure that tag ID numbers are read.
When designing the system, Sun International had learned several problems with reading RFID badges worn on employees: for example, how to ensure that a reader reads each tag when a large number of people pass by a reader at the same time. In addition, because workers are evacuated by bus, the nuclear power plant also needs to be able to read the tags in the vehicles. Therefore, Sun International’s system must ensure that tags in moving vehicles are read.
Although the company tested a variety of tags, none offered the required read sensitivity, Sun said. Therefore, the company opted to develop specialized tags to read tags in crowds or through car windows. This label is custom made by a third-party provider.
Currently, more than 100 readers have been installed at the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant. Sun International also provides software to store, manage and display people’s location data on maps.
In addition, employees receive an RFID badge with a built-in UHF tag. Each employee will be required to lanyard this badge, along with their existing photo ID badge, around their neck. Sun said the company considered embedding RFID tags into existing badges, but found that the transmission distance was not long enough. Therefore, each employee needs to wear both the RFID badge and the original ID badge.
Sun International’s software stores each employee’s tag ID number, name, job title, and the area to which they are allowed to enter. 1 or 2 readers are installed at the gate of each area to read the employee ID to determine the employee’s arrival in the area.
On-site contractors need to provide personal information such as name, company and other personal information to the power station staff. The employee then entered this information into the system and was issued a temporary badge with a built-in RFID tag.
When an employee passes an RFID reader, the reader reads the tag ID, indicating the employee’s last location. Plant guards can view this data in real-time and issue warnings when personnel enter unauthorized areas.
In the event of an emergency, employees and contractors need to rush to the nearest assembly point, and the administrator is responsible for confirming those who have arrived and providing guidance on the next steps.
When a person leaves the station and rushes to the bus, the reader for the exit route picks up every movement within 10-15 meters, even on a moving bus. The software then updates this data.
Security staff can see people in specific areas on the map. The number of people is also represented numerically in each area. Staff can also tap the digital screen to view the names of people in the area.
Several benefits offered by RFID systems are described in a written document submitted by Sun to the China Nuclear Energy Industry Association. The document reads: “The system completely changes the error-prone manual method of technology and can display personnel information in real time on a computer. The system has passed very rigorous testing and has shown very good results in multiple emergency drills. Effect.”
In addition, Sun said, the plant has found another use for the technology, which is to enhance employee time records. For example, when an employee has an abnormal attendance report, company managers can log in to the RFID system to confirm the employee’s actual working hours. At the same time, the system can also be used to confirm whether employees are late and leave early.
During this period, the emergency function of the technology was tested several times. “Since the system went live, the company has conducted several drills,” Sun said. “The results of the drills were incredible. The results showed that the system’s tag read rate was close to 100 percent.”
Sun International is installing the automatic emergency personnel management system for several other nuclear power plants in China and is in talks with several U.S. nuclear power plants. The program will also be rolled out in industries such as mining and oil, Sun said.
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