In Chapter 6 the non-site-specific factors affecting the competitiveness of SMRs have been reviewed. The review focused on a relative impact of each of the considered factors on the economy of a NPP with SMRs versus that of a NPP with a large reactor.

One of the main factors negatively acting on the competitiveness of SMRs is the economy of scale. Depending on the power level, the specific (per kWe) capital cost of SMRs are expected to be tens to hundreds percents higher than for large reactors.

Other factors tend to ameliorate the capital costs of SMRs. These are:

• The reduction of the construction period resulting in a significant economy in the costs of financing. This is particularly important if the interest rate is high.

• The savings from building subsequent units on the same site and from serial production of factory-built SMRs (“learning in construction” and “sharing of common facilities on the site”).

• The design simplification due to inherent properties of particular SMRs.

In some cases, additional design specific factors allow further reduction of capital costs, e. g., for the barge-mounted plants.

However, even taking all above factors into account, one can conclude that the specific capital costs of SMRs would probably be higher than those of a large plant. As an example, four integral type or marine derivative PWRs of 300 MWe (and not FOAK) built on the same site may have the effective per unit specific overnight capital costs of about 10-40% higher compared to those of a NPP with a single large PWR of 1 200 MWe. As another example, a five-module NPP with such 300 MWe reactors may have overnight capitals costs that are about 7-38% higher compared to those of a NPP with a single large PWR of 1 500 MWe.

A very important benefit of SMRs is that they could be incrementally deployed in shorter time frames. This allows a significant reduction in front-end investment and capital-at-risk compared to capacity increase with large reactors.

The levelised unit cost of electricity generated by SMRs and large reactors is design — and site — specific. However, several conclusions on the factors influencing the LUEC could be made:

• The LUEC share of O&M and fuel costs for SMRs (17-41%) is noticeably below that of large reactors (45-58%).

• Co-production of heat or desalinated water leads to a significant credit expressed in USD per MWh. This credit could be subtracted from the total unit cost to establish an equivalent of the levelised cost of producing only electricity. In this case the values of LUEC could be improved by about 20-30% (for some SMR designs).

In the following chapter, several design — and site-specific estimates of the capital cost and LUEC will be performed, in order to illustrate the competitiveness of SMRs compared to the alternative energy sources in some electricity and heat markets around the world.

References

[6.1] IEA/NEA (2010), Projected Costs of Generating Electricity: 2010 Edition, OECD, Paris,

France.

[6.2] IAEA (2007), Status of Small Reactor Designs without On-site Refuelling, IAEA-TECDOC-

1536, Vienna, Austria.

[6.3] IAEA (2010), “Small Reactors without On-site Refuelling: General Vision, Neutronic

Characteristics, Emergency Planning Considerations and Deployment Scenarios” — Final Report of IAEA Coordinated Research Project on Small Reactors without On-site Refuelling, IAEA — TECDOC-1652, Vienna, Austria.

[6.4] IEA/NEA (2000), Reduction of Capital Costs of Nuclear Power Plants, OECD, Paris, France.

[6.5] IAEA (2010), “Approaches to Assess Competitiveness of Small and Medium Sized Reactors”,

Proceedings of the International Conference on Opportunities and Challenges for Water Cooled Reactors in the 21st Century, 27-30 October 2009, Paper 1S01.

[6.6] Rouillard, J. and J. L. Rouyer (1992), “Commissariat a l’energie atomique”, contributor to IAEA-

TECDOC 666, Technical and Economic Evaluation of Potable Water Production Through Desalination of Sea Water by Using Nuclear Energy and Other Means.

[6.7] Paulson, C. K. (2006), “Westinghouse AP1000 advanced plant simplification results, measures,

and benefits”, ICONE-10, (Proc. 10th Int. Conf. on Nuclear Engineering). Arlington VA.

[6.8] IAEA (2006), Status of Innovative Small and Medium Sized Reactor Designs 2005: Reactors

with Conventional Refuelling Schemes, IAEA-TECDOC-1485, Vienna, Austria.

[6.9] Mitenkov, F. M., B. A. Averbakh, I. N. Antiufeeva, L. V. Gureeva (2004), “Conceptual analysis of

commercial production experience and influence of main factors on the economy of propulsion nuclear plant lifecycle”. Proceedings of the 2-nd International Scientific and Technical Conference “Energy-Strat’2004: Power development planning: methodology, software, applications”, Moscow, the Russian Federation.

[6.10] IAEA (2000), Safety of the Nuclear Power Plants: Design Requirements, Safety Standards Series, No. NS-R-1, IAEA, Vienna, Austria.

[6.11] OKBM update on the VBER-300 design description in IAEA-TECDOC-1485, OKBM Afrikantov, the Russian Federation, 2009.

[6.12] Krysov, S. V., A. A. Andreev, V. A. Sozoniuk (“Rosenergoatom”), V. V. Petrunin, L. V. Gureeva and S. A. Fateev (2007), Potential for Improving Economic Efficiency of Floating and Land — based NPPs of Small and Medium Power/IAEA Technical Meeting "Approaches to Improve Economic Efficiency of Small and Medium Power Reactors”, IAEA, Vienna, Austria.

[6.13] KLT-40S Main Data Tables & Diagram (2010), Nuclear Engineering International: www. neimagazine. com/joumals/Power/NEI/January_2010/attachments/KLT- 40S%20Data%20&%20Diagram. pdf

[6.14] NEA (2009), The Financing of Nuclear Power Plants, OECD, Paris, France.

[6.15] Boarin, S. and M. Ricotti (2009), “Cost and Profitability Analysis of Modular SMRs in Different Deployment Scenarios”, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE 17), Brussels, Belgium, Paper ICONE17-75741.

[6.16] Written Testimony of Christofer M. Mowry President, Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Energy, Inc. The Babcock & Wilcox Company Before the Committee on Science and Technology U. S. House of Representatives, May 19, 2010. Available at:

https://smr. inl. gov/Document. ashx? path=DOCS%2FCongressional+Testimony%2FMowry_test

imony_B%26W. pdf

[6.17] OKBM update on the KLT-40S design descriptions in IAEA-TECDOC-1391 and IAEA Nuclear Energy Series Report NP-T-2.2, OKBM Afrikantov, the Russian Federation, 2009.

[6.18] IAEA (2008), Energy, Electricity and Nuclear Power for the period up to 2030, Reference Data Series No. 1, IAEA, Vienna, Austria.

[6.19] IAEA (2007), Status of Nuclear Desalination in IAEA Member States, Small Reactor Designs without On-site Refuelling, IAEA-TECDOC-1524, Vienna, Austria.

[6.20] Il Soon Hwang, et al, (2008) “PASCAR-DEMO — a Small Modular Reactor for PEACER Demonstration”, KNS spring.

[6.21] Il Soon Hwang 2009, (NUTRECK, SNU, Republic of Korea). Private communication.