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

Abstract

Abstract Renewal of nuclear power programs in 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 in the International Atomic Energy Agency and in the USA (within the framework of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program) with the aim to inspect under which circumstances small and medium reactors could be the preferred option compared to large nuclear plants. The economy of scale is a clear advantage of large plants. This paper compares, by using probabilistic methods, the net cash flow of large and medium size plants, taking as example a large nuclear plant (around 1200 MW) and four sequentially built smaller plants (300 MW). Potential advantages and disadvantageous of both options have been considered. Main advantages of the sequential construction of several identical small units could be the reduced investor risk and reduced investment costs due to the learning effect. This analysis is a part of studies for the Croatian power generating system development.