Nuclear power is undergoing a tremendous renaissance, with 61 units currently under construction and about 500 further reactors already under contract or planned within the next two decades. More than 150 different projects, many of them joint ventures, are competing against each other to attract technology suppliers. If projects are implemented as their owners intend, global investment volumes will be in the range of the annual gross domestic product of leading European countries and will exceed thousands of billions of euro.
Typically, owners run their projects to very tight time schedules but in many cases the project team is new to the nuclear sector or has only limited nuclear new build experience. The Arthur D. Little study, “Nuclear New Build Unveiled”, analyzes trends and challenges in the nuclear industry with regard to new build projects as well as providing insights into the approach of owners and project companies towards their projects. The study concludes that, besides its technical complexity, the management challenges posed by a nuclear new build are often underestimated and call for professional management of nuclear new build ventures. This publication is a summary of the study.