Power Engineering - GSE Systems provides unique training to promote nuclear plant operating stability

COLUMBIA, Md., Dec. 31, 2002 -- GSE Systems, Inc. (GSE), a global provider of real-time simulation and process control solutions for the energy and process industries, announced that its Swedish subsidiary, GSE Power Systems AB, has completed four training courses in 2002.

Over 30 nuclear power plant engineers and operators were trained on how to avoid unstable conditions that can cause Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) power plants to go off line, causing lost revenue. Nuclear power plant personnel from Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Germany participated in the training.

GSE has worked with BWR stability issues since 1987 and was the first company to detect and report on limit-cycle oscillations in a commercial BWR. GSE has developed a training course and written a textbook on BWR stability supported by the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI).

The training course covers a broad range of topics including causes of BWR instability, parameters affecting stability, and countermeasures to avoid instability.

In addition to classroom training, GSE offers SIMON(TM), a stability monitor that advises operators in the control room when stability margins are being reduced. SIMON monitors the core's stability margins on-line, and continuously traces the conditions through calculations such as the Decay Ratio.

Early warning by SIMON when stability margins are reduced and SIMON's short response time gives the operator a chance to observe and counteract declining stability margins to avoid reactor power oscillations with high amplitude.

One of the participants attending the course, Mr. Frank Holzgrewe, core physicist at KKM in Switzerland, said: "The course gave me a good theoretical background to the mechanism of instability and how to avoid it. I am very pleased with the course and we use SIMON for surveillance at KKM."

GSE will be holding another course March 18-20, 2003 in Sweden, and is exploring conducting the same training in the US. Information on the course is contained on GSE's website, www.gses.com/processoptimization.html .

According to Jerry Jen, President and Chief Operating Officer of GSE Systems: "We've had a lot of success with this course in Europe, and participants truly feel they are getting value for their investment in the course. They can even bring their own plant data to the course for analysis. Over half of the world's BWR reactors are in the US and we will start offering this training for our US customers. We will also be working with our US customers to use our SIMON stability monitor in their control rooms, so they can enjoy the same technological benefits as control rooms in Sweden, Switzerland and Japan."

GSE Systems, Inc. is a real-time simulation, process control, and automation company with three decades of experience, over 500 applications, and 200 customers in more than 30 countries. Information about GSE Systems is available via the Internet at http://www.gses.com.

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