Why are Megaprojects, Including Nuclear Power Plants, Delivered Overbudget and Late? Reasons and Remedies

Abstract

In the first section, this report analyses Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) in the context of megaprojects, explaining why they are often delivered over budget and late. In the second section, the report discusses how Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) might address these issues. Megaprojects are extremely risky and often implemented after a sub-optimal phase of project planning leading to underestimations of the costs and overestimation of short-term benefits. When considering adherence to schedule and budget, often megaprojects might be considered a failure, and optimism bias, strategic mis-rapresentation, complexity, poor planning, poor risk allocation, poor scope management are all reasons to explain their over budget and delay. For megaprojects, especially in the nuclear field, a key strategy to achieve good performances appears to be the standardization. This standardization needs to be twofold: (i) technical standardisation, i.e. the construction of very similar design over and over, and (ii) the project delivery chain standardisation, i.e. the same stakeholders involved in the delivery of a project that is replicable multiple times. Under this perspective, given their size and standardisation potential, SMRs, might be a suitable class of NPP for several countries. Yet, if the economy of scale is the only driver considered, SMRs are hardly competitive with large NPPs (or even with gas or coal power plants). However, a fleet of standard SMRs might balance the lack of economy of scale with the economy of multiples, and the delivery of several standardised SMR projects might be the key to achieve good project management performances in the nuclear sector. However, the deployment of SMRs faces a number of challenges from several perspectives, such as the licencing, supply chain and financing ones. These challenges might be enormous, but so are the potential rewards too.