Nuclear Power Plant (Hungary) is developed in this paper based on first engineering principles that is able to describe the time-varying active and reactive power output of the generator. These generators are required to take part in the reactive power support of the power grid following the demand of a central dispatch center, and also contribute to the frequency control of the grid. The developed model has been verified under the usual controlled operating conditions when the frequency and the active power are controlled. Static and dynamic sensitivity analysis has been applied to determine the model parameters to be estimated. The model parameters have been estimated applying the asynchronous parallel pattern search method using real measured data from the nuclear power plant. The confidence regions in the parameter space have been analyzed by investigating the geometry of the estimation error function. The developed model can serve as a basis for controlling the optimal energy production of the generator using both the active and reactive power components. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.