ETI Insights Report - Update to the role for Nuclear in UK's Transition to a Low Carbon Economy

Abstract:

This report is intended to be an update to the first ETI nuclear insight report released in October 2015, entitled Nuclear – the role for nuclear within a low carbon energy system, and for completeness also summarises developments in the UK nuclear context since 2015. This insight report summarises the learning from the ETI’s Nuclear Cost Drivers (NCD) project which was commissioned through open competitive procurement, delivered by the organisation now known as Lucid-Catalyst, and reported in April 2018. It also reports the learning from applying the nuclear cost drivers data and associated learning through sensitivity testing in the ESME whole system modelling tool now operated by the Energy System Catapult. The NCD project report concluded that there was strong evidence of applicable cost reduction in the UK, but collective action is required against all cost drivers by all project stakeholders, including government, to bring about the integrated programme of activities necessary to realise this potential. The benefits of such collective action are largely realised through productivity improvements in direct labour and indirect services during construction, giving shorter, more predictable schedules and repeatable engineering. This report also proposes that some FOAK (First of a Kind) commercial plants that could be operational from 2035, could offer further transformational reductions in cost and consequential growth in economic opportunity through deployment in the UK and elsewhere.

Publication Year:

2019

Publisher:

ETI

DOI:

No DOI minted

Author(s):

Middleton, M.