LTE and Wi-Fi technologies have undergone testing at the Leningrad NPP 1st power unit. The main goal was to determine if the digital transformation project can be delivered at the NPP: digital health, predictive analytics as well as video analysis project, monitoring of compliance with occupational health and production safety standards. For instance, the ‘Digital health’ project pre-supposes that a number of wearables will be introduce to monitor staff’s vital signs (blood pressure, pulse, ECG, etc.) in the real time when they are at their workplaces. The idea of the project is to reduce the risk of accidents.

The unit control room and the reactor hall of the 1st power unit were chosen as the testing zones as they house the most critical safety systems. Another testing area was the open switchyard (SWYD-330) site with high electromagnetic radiation that may affect LTE and Wi-Fi operation.

During the tests, a number of packages of different sizes were transmitted between ten wireless devices simultaneously. This was supposed to demonstrate how the wireless network can handle high load. As a result, the speed, the quality and the completeness of information transmission were determined. The LTE technology was also used for an additional voice and video conference test both within the sites and between them.

‘The tests have demonstrated that Wi-Fi and LTE technologies are suitable for the introduction of digital projects, taking into consideration their bandwidth and connection quality’, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, the chief engineer of the Leningrad NPP, noted. ‘We will also conduct similar test at the 2nd power block later this year. Additionally, we plan to purchase equipment to launch this system at all six power block of the Leningrad NPP in 2021’.