Build-To-Replace Strategy to Reduce the O&M Costs of Advanced Reactors

This paper targets reducing fixed operations and maintenance (O&M) costs to $2/MWh for
advanced reactor (AR) designs, an order of magnitude reduction from current nuclear fleets. This
goal will be severely constrained if the underlying assumptions of O&M approaches and practices
are not questioned and reexamined, especially today when changes can be implemented effectively
and efficiently. Achieving a 90% reduction in AR O&M costs requires a completely new way of
thinking—a paradigm shift—not through incremental, technology-focused approaches alone. Here,
we address this challenge by evaluating the impact of moving to a shorter design life for major
structures, systems, and components and shorter, more predictable refurbishment cycles as modeled
by the commercial airline industry. This paper provides a brief overview of this different mindset to
O&M applied to ARs: the build-to-replace approach. We provide a direct example analysis of a
build-to-replace scenario by identifying and evaluating scenarios for reduced system and component
lifetimes and associated replacement and refurbishment schedules to evaluate impacts on O&M
costs and other lifecycle elements, such as structure, system, and component reliability.