Open model for the evaluation of economic attractiveness of small and medium sized reactors

This annex describes the development of an open model for simulation and evaluation of the economic features of small and medium sized reactors (SMRs), being undertaken by the Politecnico di Milano in Italy. The model aims at establishing a comparative assessment of SMRs versus large reactors (LRs) as its final output. The model will allow assessment of the competitiveness of SMRs under different deployment and application conditions. The distinctive attributes of SMRs such as replication, scalability, reversibility and standardization are briefly described below. The features of SMRs impacting the domains of generation costs (co-siting economies, learning economies, technical economies, mass production and factory fabrication economies), deployment conditions (market matching, market suitability, reduced entry barriers) and financial costs (lower financial distress, reduced risk premium) are addressed before explaining the model architecture. Other state of the art models in this regard are also discussed, along with their respective attributes. The special features of the SMR model being developed are discussed. At the current stage of research, selected elements of the generation costs are modelled analytically. Provisions for adapting financial and external costs from other contemporary models and integrating the same into the main framework are being established. The model has been realized as a code, and the updated version of this code is used in the case studies of SMR competitiveness in different applications, carried out within the IAEA project Common Technology and Issues for SMRs