Summary Report on Nuclear Power Plants Construction, Commissioning and Manufacturing Events

Abstract

Interest in constructing new nuclear power plants is increasing worldwide. Some countries are embarking on a nuclear programme for the first time, while others have decided to re-start construction of nuclear power plants after a hiatus of decades. Starting new build is very demanding, as much of the earlier experience and resources have progressively been lost from the nuclear industry. Circumstances are quite different from 1970s when most of the plants currently operating were constructed. Vendors had large experienced organisations ready to go ahead, and had less need to rely on subcontractors. In addition, there was no shortage of skilled manufacturing capacity in the market, and designs were often based on work done in similar ongoing or completed projects. The aim of this study is to collect lessons learned form past and current construction projects and to raise recommendations for the regulators and the licensees. The present document summarises the main trends and the main recommendations concerning construction, commissioning and manufacturing. This work is part of the European Clearinghouse on Nuclear Power Plant Operational Feedback (NPP-OEF) activity carried out at the Joint Research Centre/Institute for Energy (JRC/IE). It describes the results of the analysis of the events related to the construction of new NPP and reported to the IAEA International Reporting System (IRS) database, to the Licensee Events Report (LER) database of the US NRC and collected by the Working Group on the Regulation of the New Reactors (WGRNR) of the NEA.