Nuclear won’t wait. How to enter the supply chain before the window closes. And this is it.

On March 31, 2026, a permit application for the construction of Poland’s first nuclear power plant (NPP) in Choczewo was submitted to the President of the National Atomic Energy Agency. The documentation spans 42,000 pages. On that day, the Polish construction market changed for generations—though the scale of this transformation is not immediately visible.

The value of the power plant itself: PLN 192 billion. That excludes access roads. It excludes the railway line. It excludes water, sewage, power, and logistics infrastructure. All of this will be developed alongside that figure—in separate proceedings, separate contracts, and with separate contracting authorities.

What has happened in the last few weeks—and what is coming in the next ones:

• • PEJ (Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe) has published a schedule for 43 tenders to be completed by the end of 2026. The largest include: water and sewage infrastructure (up to PLN 200 million), construction site facilities (up to PLN 100 million), and a reserve road (up to PLN 30 million).
• • On April 16, PKP PLK announced a tender for the modernization of the 230 Wejherowo–Choczewo railway line. This is part of a railway access project for the NPP with a total value of PLN 3.2 billion.
• GDDKiA is preparing the construction of the “last mile”—a national road (GP class) connecting the construction site to the S6 expressway.
• • The EPC contract between PEJ and the Westinghouse–Bechtel consortium is expected to be signed in Q2 2026. This contract will determine how much of the promised PLN 70 billion in local content will actually reach Polish companies.
• The government has adopted a draft law shortening procedures for nuclear investments by up to two years.
• At the peak of construction, at least 10,000 people will be on-site.

his is not a warm-up. This is the start.

And now, the part that is less comfortably discussed.

Entering the nuclear project supply chain is not a standard public procurement process. It is an entirely different contractual regime.

To begin with, you do not enter the nuclear supply chain with only experience in FIDIC contracts and highway references. Every supplier—from a reinforcement manufacturer to a pipeline installation company—must have a quality management system verified against nuclear standards. In practice, we are talking about the three most important:

• NQA-1 (Nuclear Quality Assurance): An American standard developed by ASME, required by the Westinghouse–Bechtel consortium for suppliers of components important to nuclear safety.

• ASME Code (Section III and related): A technical code for pressure, structural, and mechanical components of nuclear installations. Without it, you cannot even supply a bolt for the nuclear island.

• ISO 19443: A European quality standard for organizations providing products and services important to nuclear safety (ITNS). Increasingly required by the European partners of the consortium.

Obtaining any of these is a 12–24 month project—not a quarterly one. A company that starts today will be ready for the second or third wave of tenders. Those who start a year from now will only be in time for supplementary orders and secondary supplies.

On top of this, there are EPC contracts with risk mechanisms far exceeding anything the Polish construction market has experienced under FIDIC-based GDDKiA contracts. The regime of the Atomic Law and the National Atomic Energy Agency (PAA) supervision overlaps with the Public Procurement Law, the Construction Law, and the Special Nuclear Act. Financing linked to State Treasury guarantees, the Contract for Difference (CfD), and the US EXIM loan—each of these elements generates covenants that cascade down the supply chain to subcontractors.

Three questions that a CEO and General Counsel of a construction company should ask themselves within this quarter:

1. 1. Do we have a realistic path to NQA-1 certification within 12–18 months—or will we only find out we don’t have it after the first bid is opened?
2. 1. Will our standard sub-contracting agreements withstand the pass-through of covenants from the EPC contract, the Contract for Difference, and debt financing?
3. 1. Do we understand how liability for nuclear damage looks under the Paris Convention regime and what that means for our professional indemnity insurance?

Those who do not have answers today will not participate. Not because they cannot build, but because they failed to prepare contractually.

In this project, legal counsel is not a support function. It is a qualification function.