The construction project strategy to be adopted by an operating organisa­tion will depend on its circumstances. It must be recognised, however, that even with a turnkey contract, considerable resources will be required to ensure due diligence in the acquisition and construction phase.

For the commissioning phase the operating organisation must be suffi­ciently developed to acquire the knowledge and experience to be gained from commissioning activities and to be in a position to assume full respon­sibility for operation on completion of the contract.

In some countries the nuclear site licensing process has been developed to allow a general licence for construction and commissioning. There are, however, hold points in such licences that require the operator to meet conditions with regard to the competencies that must be established before, for example, nuclear fuel is delivered to the site or fuel is loaded into the reactor. Business plans and project plans must reflect these requirements.

Licensing issues are covered in Chapter 20 and commissioning in Chapter 22.

134 Infrastructure and methodologies for justification of NPPs