Dear readers, I founded my company in March 2023, but it took six months before the company could start its commercial activities. Now my nuclear engineering and consultant company has worked for one and half years and running a company has become a routine to me. The name of my company informs its area – Nuclear Consulting done by Nevander – NUCONEVA.
I won’t bore you with the difficulties I faced when starting my business. Now the business is going quite well, and I hope to maintain the same level or even expand my business operations in the coming years. The year 2025 has started with plenty of demanding work, even though I was able to have three weeks holiday in March-April.
There’s no point in going into the details of the company contracts, but recently I have worked with the following contractual partners or end customers:
- Automation and I&C renewal – https://www.tvo.fi/
- Nuclear newbuild preparations in Poland – www.fortum.fi and www.pej.pl
- Nuclear newbuild (SMR project) in Finland – https://www.steadyenergy.com/
- ENISS – Licensing of new design working groups (LNDWG) – https://www.eniss.eu/
- Preparation of the international accelerator facility FAIR https://fair-center.eu/
In the above-mentioned projects I have been able to share my experience in nuclear power project management and project model definition. During this work I have also further developed and updated the known nuclear power plant construction models, licensing processes and cost management models together with customers.
The need for nuclear power is great again and there is a lot of talk about it. In general, European nuclear power projects require expertise in business matters. Many projects are based on research, but experience in commercial operations and complex stakeholder management is lacking.
Personally, I am a little bit scared that the costs of new nuclear are too high. The overregulation and binding requirement management with thousands of requirements without clear importance grading is too often present. This results in over a billion euros in country- and site-specific planning costs before the first shovel is even dug into the ground. How to avoid this? The opportunity to meet only the necessary requirements and reject unnecessary shall be a paramount in nuclear projects. The solution requires a flexible nuclear safety authority with technical expertise and authority. In addition, the owner must have the ability and intelligence to act as a design authority during design and construction. The fixed price EPC contract is simple for the high management and to the financier but can double or triple the total cost of the project. To see these risks and to been able to use another kind of project options need deep understanding on the specific features in nuclear new build projects.
Now I am looking forward to new challenges and opportunities to help in tailoring solutions for nuclear project management in Europe. I hope that I still get new chances to help project management to steer the work in nuclear new build project with confidence.