Managing Drivers of Cost in the Construction of Nuclear Plants

To make a meaningful contribution toward clean, reliable, and economical future energy systems, nuclear power plants (NPPs) must be cost and risk competitive with other low-carbon technologies within near-term timeframes. Recent new builds in the United States and western Europe have suffered from two phenomena. First, they are expensive in absolute and relative terms: the cost per MW installed, along with the size of the plant, makes them among the most expensive power plants of any type. Second, they have all been delivered overbudget and late, making the construction of an NPP a risky investment, which in turn increases the cost of borrowing money for new projects.