Economics of Small Modular Reactors: Will They MakeNuclear Power More Competitive?

摘要

Looking at the historical evolution of commercial use of nuclear power,the long-term trend so far has been to increase the size of the reactors to maintain their economic competitiveness through economies of scale.However,over the last five years,advanced reactor concepts,among which the SMRs(Small Modular Reactors),have progressed faster than anyone predicted ten years ago.It is likely that several FOAK(First of a kind)SMRs will be constructed and start operation over the next ten years,and a global supply chain will be developed to support them.Benefitting from their architecture and the overall system simplification,SMRs could become one of the main drivers of deep decarbonisation of the global economy,an enabler of large-scale hydrogen economy,a solution for allowing growth of energy consumption in the developing world without relying on fossil fuels,a means to replace the heat source of hundreds of coal power plants around the globe.The article analyses the main economic drivers to override the diseconomy of scale of SMRs-modularisation and factory build,design simplification,standardisation,and industrial and regulatory harmonisation-and discusses the advantages and challenges of different SMR designs in unlocking those drivers.Some publicly available studies on SMR CAPEX,OPEX and LCOE are reviewed to demonstrate the values the different vendors and developers are targeting to make SMRs competitive not only with respect to large nuclear reactors but also to other means of electricity and heat generation.