Opportunity analysis of small and medium reactors in the post Fukushima scenario

The aim of this work is to assess the profitability of Small-Medium Reactors (SMRs) investment in specific countries and scenarios. The first chapter describes the nuclear market with the evolution of the nuclear technologies. We have focused on the Small and Medium Reactors. In recent years many studies have been carried out on these new systems, developing innovative designs. However, in literature there are few papers investigating the economic and financial benefits of the SMRs and an important support about this theme comes from studies carried out by the Politecnico of Milan and University of Lincoln in collaboration with the IAEA in the model developed INCAS (Integrated model for the Competitiveness Assessment of SMRs). The tool INCAS is used to perform an analysis in terms of monetary investment in specific scenarios. The model also includes the evaluation of non-monetary factors called external factors. This thesis provides a contribution to investigate which countries are interested in the SMRs and those where there are favourable factors for their deployment. Thanks to the literature review, it has been developed a selection of the countries in three screenings. This research cannot overlook the importance of Fukushima accident. In the first screening we take into account all the countries considered by the IAEA and WNA collecting all the information about nuclear policy of the countries. We carry out a review of these information to select the countries interested in SMR technology and that have intention to deploy SMRs in a short term scenario. In the last screening we outline a number of factors and scenarios where SMRs can provide benefits. These scenarios have been called strategic scenarios, as they are the strengths on which this technology can compete in the energy market. We perform more detailed analysis in the first countries of the final ranking to ascertain the true profitability of the investment. After presenting the energy market of the country, we gather all the data necessary to perform the simulation in INCAS. Almost all of the data are country-specific and they are also values that may have high variability. Precautionary values and sensitivity analysis are taken into account to obtain consistent results over input variations. In conclusion, this work shows the profitability of SMR investment in the countries analysed and the competitiveness of SMRs towards LRs and the operational power plants.