UK-based international project manage- ment, engineering and consultancy group Amec (which can trace its history back to 1848) has warned that designing and building nuclear power plants (NPPs) are very different to owning and operating them. “What you need for a nuclear build programme is quite different from what you need to operate [NPPs],” affirmed Amec VP: nuclear new build (UK) Martin Wenban at the recent Nuclear Africa 2013 conference.
“We have learnt that there is a huge difference between owning and operating, and designing and building NPPs,” he explained.“The skills sets are quite different. Staff with a nuclear operating background do not make good project managers for nuclear. Operational staff are focused on stability. But new projects involve risk. So don’t overstaff your project team with operational staff.”
He pointed out that it had been a long time since both the UK and South Africa had built a new NPP. South Africa’s only NPP, at Koeberg, near Cape Town, had been completed in 1985, while Britain’s most recent example, Sizewell B, had been finished in 1995.
Both countries now had new NPP construction programmes, with the UK a little ahead of South Africa, meaning that this country could benefit from the current British experiences, especially as both countries have nonprescriptive (in technology terms) nuclear regulators. “With nonprescriptive regulators, [NPP] designers need to be in alignment with the regulators,” he cautioned. “This requires negotiation.” Designs have to be adapted to local conditions, with the design and construction teams using modern techniques to do this, including 360º virtual reality ‘6D walk-through’ systems.
While South Africa plans to build 9.6 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2030, the UK hopes to construct some 18.6 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2025. (In 2010, Britain’s nuclear capacity was about 10.5 GW from 16 reactors at nine NPPs. For comparison, gas capacity was 93 GW, coal was 29 GW, hydropower capacity was 4.2 GW and wind was also 4.2 GW but with a load capacity of only 21.7%. Peak demand was 61 GW.)
“The UK has never attempted to build so many NPPs in a similar time period,” reported Wenban. “Capability development is absolutely critical. Overreliance is being placed on the competent, trusted few. Programme leaders need to encourage the development of new capability.”
For the wider South African industry, he warned that even subcontractors working on the non-nuclear parts of the new NPPs should be “nuclear SQEP”, this being the acronym for Suitably Qualified and Experienced Person/Personnel. All elements of an NPP require the highest standards and nuclear SQEP status ensures that these are achieved. This will also bring other benefits. “Proven domestic capa- bility has international export value.”
For the nuclear new build programme to be a success, the vendor needs to have achieved design and licensing maturity before it starts construction, he stressed. From the very beginning, there has to be a colocated and integrated project team. The project director must be appointed early on on a contract which lasts for the dura- tion of the project. “You need rigorous daily, weekly and monthly milestone meetings to manage the schedule performance and any variations.” On the other hand, government needs to continually talk about consistence and stability in order to give industry the assurance it needs to commit to such a project. Modern NPPs will have a life of 60 years, making them long-term investments.
“In the UK, we are fortunate that we still have 60% to 65% public support for new nuclear build,” reported Wenban. “It’s not luck – it’s fortunate. It’s because of [national and local] education and information by the industry, unions and government.”
Currently, the companies planning to build and operate new NPPs in the UK are EDF Energy (the British subsidiary of the French State-owned Electricité de France group), which has selected the European pressurised water reactor (designed by another French State-owned company, Areva); Hitachi, of Japan, with the General Electric-Hitachi advanced boiling water reactor and NuGen (a joint venture between French private-sector electricity group GDF Suez and Spanish private-sector group Iberdrola), which has not yet selected the reactor design it will use.
On March 19, the British government granted EDF Energy permission to build the first of its planned new NPPs, at the existing nuclear site of Hinkley Point. The nuclear site licence had already been granted and the EPR design approved.

The company’s reported entire approvals process involved 55 000 pages of detailed evidence, individual responses to 33 000 comments from the public and more than 100 public meetings.

The new NPP will be called Hinkley Point C and the only outstanding issue is the conclusion of the electricity supply contract. “Renewables (mainly wind) are subsidised quite heavily [in the UK],” observed Wenban. “EDF wants a floor [electricity] price. It wants a level playing field. It wants some kind of minimum threshold price to make the new NPP profitable.”