Construction schedules of nuclear power plants, from the first placement of structural concrete to grid connections, have ranged from less than five years to more than twelve years. Achieving short and accurately predicted construction durations is critical to the financial success of any new power plant project. This is one of the challenges facing the nuclear industry. As recent experience in construction shows, there are other challenges, such as: the complexity of the vendor-customer relationship; length of the supply chain; and the globalization of the nuclear industry. Thirty years ago, nuclear power projects in the world took an average of 73 months from ground breaking to fuel load.
Current proposed schedules from the evaluated vendors average 52 months. Because there is a big difference between the previous and the proposed schedules, it is important to determine to what extent the proposed schedules may be relied upon, and to what extent there are risks that may be mitigated by further government and industry effort. Although additional licensing requirements, public intervention, suppliers and funding problems have been attributed to most of the delays and cost increases, it is recognized that the lack of proper project management skills is also one of the major factors for delay.
Project management is, by definition, an interfacing and an integrating activity and its description requires first an understanding of the associated functions such as engineering, quality assurance, procurement and accounting. This guide intends to address all relevant issues related to construction management of nuclear power plants and to introduce good management practices drawn from international experience which will allow commissioning to proceed promptly, safely and to high quality standards. Based on data available and information related to project management in construction of nuclear power plants, TRS No. 279 is no longer valid. This report builds on and updates TRS No. 279, Nuclear Project Management–A guidebook and TRS No. 279 is superseded and replaced with this report. Its main focal points are:
- Provide an effective guideline about construction management approaches to prospective owner organizations of countries that are embarking on their first nuclear power project under either a turnkey contractual approach or a split package approach;
- Define and explain the owners’ duties in the preparation and execution phase of a nuclear programme with particular emphasis on construction management;
- Present advanced construction and scheduling methods and approaches that have been developed and successfully adopted in the past 25 years; including the growing use of computerized tools.
Link for downloading the document:
Project Management in Nuclear Power Plant Construction: Guidelines and Experience | IAEA