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

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