During the 22nd refuelling outage at Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant, GDES Innovation implemented its innovative technological solution, VIGIA, a hardware and software system to control and monitor materials in FME (Foreign Material Exclusion) zones using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) wireless technology.

Comprising two mobile beacons, two handheld scanners and different tags to classify and identify any material, VIGIA provides total control over the supply of tools to the refuelling area, especially in the reactor cavity, ensuring fast, automated real-time traceability. The VIGIA beacons automatically log the tools and equipment and can even log several items simultaneously without the time-consuming need for operators and technicians to do it manually as they enter and exit.

This solution provides power plants with permanent, real-time knowledge of the tools taken into FME zones and the staff that take them, and can track specific tools if lost.

As an added value that sets this new solution from GDES Innovation apart, it provides constantly updated data, simultaneous logging, automatic logging at entry/exit, digitised information (graphics, features, properties, etc.), data collection for subsequent analysis (number of people, times, types of tools, incident detection, etc.), targeted tracking of misplaced tools, and, in general terms, it is open to multiple and diverse applications tailored to each client.

In the case of Cofrentes NPP, two VIGIA beacons were installed during the refuelling outage. Access to the refuelling area produced 45,000 real-time log entries and access to the cavity 16,000 log entries during the 34 days of work.