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Potential advantages and disadvantages of sequential building small nuclear units instead of a large nuclear power plant

Renewal of nuclear power programs in several countries with modest electricity consumptions and weak electrical grid interconnections has raised the question of optimal nuclear power plants sizes for such countries. The same question would be also valid for isolated or weakly connected regions within a large country. Building large size nuclear power plant could be prevented by technical or financial limits. Research programs have been initiated within International Atomic Energy Agency and US (in the frame of global nuclear energy partnership (GNEP) program) with aim to inspect under which circumstances small and medium reactors could be preferred option when compared to large nuclear plants. Economy of scale is a clear advantage of large plants. This paper compares , by using probabilistic method, net cash flow of large and medium size plants, taking as example a large nuclear plants (around 1200 MW) and four sequentially built smaller plants (300 MW). Potential advantages and disadvantageous of both options have been considered. Main advantages of sequential construction of several identical small units could be in reduced investor risk and in reduced investment costs due to learning effect. The analysis is a part of studies for Croatian power generating system development.

global nuclear energy partnership; sequentially built plants

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