Andrei Popa has more than 12 years of experience in mechanical and software engineering and leads the digital engineering portfolio for Tetra Tech’s nuclear power team in Canada.
Andrei is a driven design engineer and intrapreneur who creates practical engineering and software solutions. Having led multi-disciplinary teams for more than seven years, he has designed process systems, equipment, and tooling for projects within the nuclear power industry. He works across engineering disciplines, construction, procurement, project management, and client organizations to blend design engineering with software integrations. In his current role, Andrei leads the technology portfolio for Tetra Tech’s nuclear power team, implementing digital twins, software development, and AI as part of core engineering project delivery.
Andrei excels at leading teams through multi-disciplinary challenges with strategic leadership, technical oversight, and technology adoption. Andrei’s leadership in technology has enabled Tetra Tech’s advancement in emerging digital solutions, streamlining deliverable preparation to improve quality, reduce cost, and exceed client expectations. His passion for technology has made an impression on Tetra Tech’s biggest clients, prompting them to engage Andrei and his team to create transformational solutions to modernize their day-to-day engineering execution.
There is a lot of talk about digitization and digital twins in energy and power. What does it mean in the real world, specifically for mature industries like nuclear power?
A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical station or facility that reflects its design basis and configuration, which uses continuous data to reflect the real-world behaviour, performance, and conditions. This is achieved through a combination of technologies such as 3D modelling, reality capture, data and information management as well as integrations with owner-operator enterprise systems of record and extraction of data and insights from legacy documents with Extract-Transform-Load workflows and technology. For mature industries such as the nuclear power industry, this means moving away from traditional document-centric and 2D drawing methods to a comprehensive data-centric approach that taps into project delivery and change control managed by robust project lifecycle management (PLM) systems. It involves creating an integrated digital thread that connects FEED, detailed design, procurement, install, commissioning, and operations. The vision is that the digital twin ultimately serves as a living system that operators can use for the management and maintenance of the facility at scale.
What are some significant digital transformations happening in the nuclear power sector and what do they mean for our clients?
The nuclear power sector is currently undergoing a massive shift from legacy, siloed, and document-centric processes to a digitization of workflows integrated by software, cloud platforms, and APIs. Major nuclear power operators are taking steps towards implementing digital platforms to automate processes, integrating artificial intelligence to target deliverables, and adopting building information modelling (BIM).
However, we have encountered several (but surmountable) limitations and challenges that clients should be aware of:
- Change management and user adoption: users must move from working in 2D on local files to collaborating in 3D, in real time, on integrated digital platforms that provide a single source of truth
- Changes to unit of work: instead of treating whole 2D deliverables as the unit of work, teams are adopting the integrated digital twin and reusable standard designs so work can be progressed, updated, reused, and coordinated across deliverables simultaneously
- Integration hurdles: software remains fragmented, so linking engineering platforms to client systems (e.g., AVEVA to Maximo) requires time, manual transfers today, and client education until API automation is in place
- Data quality dependency: automations and dashboards only work with consistent input data—poor data or low user adoption breaks workflows and reduces ROI, though AI can help enrich inputs.
With Tetra Tech leading the way in the adoption of this technology, we are uniquely positioned to deliver real value from our first-hand experience with the tools and technology to help our clients navigate this landscape.
With Tetra Tech leading the way in the adoption of this technology, we are uniquely positioned to deliver real value from our first-hand experience with the tools and technology to help our clients navigate this landscape.
Is digitization improving decision velocity, decision accuracy, or both?
It is significantly improving both. In terms of velocity, teams now access a single source of truth (SST). With up-to-date design, they can quickly get their hands on data, models, and documents in real-time. Our integrated project twins enable project teams, clients, and stakeholders to have a holistic view of the design, as-found field condition, and information behind the model all in one place and prior to review of many design documents siloed by engineering discipline. True agility – and return-on-investment (ROI) – is realized through full lifecycle value. As design standards are built into the model that are integrated with procurement, quality improves but also deliverables such as drawings and Bill of Materials are automated. Owner or partner supply chain processes are accelerated. As scheduling tools are integrated, construction sequences are optimized and schedules are compressed.
In terms of accuracy, working from a single, live model allows multidisciplinary teams to review the design and coordinate in real-time. The brownfield twin enables interference analysis against real-world LiDAR laser scans, which is a primary constraint for brownfield designs. Advanced construction planning and constructability review tools enable the integrated project teams to plan the path of construction and enhance constructability precision. ROI is generally best exemplified by faster project delivery, cost avoidance in construction, and a decrease in design errors and omissions.
What makes Tetra Tech the ideal partner to deliver best value and reduced risks for our clients?
We centralize design and data so teams can work in real time, spot and fix build issues early, and let clients review and give useful feedback impacting their facility. This translates to real value on real projects realized through multiple dimensions. As a leading system integrator of brownfield digital solutions with wide reach of diverse platforms, our team has recently implemented BIM for design execution and Autodesk, AVEVA, Hexagon, and Cintoo platforms as well as training and advisory services for major nuclear power operators in Ontario. Tetra Tech is also leading the deployment, system integration, and adoption of AVEVA tools for engineering applications within the industry. As for greenfield technology, Tetra Tech is poised to implement the digital twin and Information Management System (IMS) for North America’s first small modular reactor (SMR) in Ontario by deploying and integrating Hexagon SDx and model-based engineering (MBE) tools.
Overall, the industry is moving towards an integrated technology solution grounded in design engineering. Our ability to implement and integrate these digital solutions for our clients are developed through our agility to adopt technology, our technical rigour, and our experience and know-how from the application of technology to our design projects.