Nuclear

Partners sign contract to develop SMR at Ontario Power Generation site

The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation SMR with passive safety systems that leverages the design and licensing basis of GEH’s ESBWR boiling water reactor.
Partners sign contract to develop SMR at Ontario Power Generation site
(Source: GE Hitachi.)

GE Hitachi (GEH), Ontario Power Generation (OPG), SNC-Lavalin and Aecon have together inked the first commercial contract for a grid-scale small modular reactor (SMR) in North America.

GEH would provide the reactor design, engineering licensing support, construction, testing, training and commissioning for the BWRX-300 SMR, to be located at OPG’s Darlington new nuclear site.

As part of the six-year agreement, SNC-Lavalin said it would also provide OPG with project management, licensing, engineering, design, procurement, construction support and commissioning, as well as digital delivery capabilities in both the nuclear island and balance of plant scopes for the project.

The project at Darlington is expected to come online by the end of the decade, partners have said.

In 2022 the Canada Infrastructure Bank committed C$970 million ($713 million) toward the project in the bank’s largest investment in clean power to date.

The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation SMR with passive safety systems that leverages the design and licensing basis of GEH’s ESBWR boiling water reactor. It is currently undergoing a CNSC pre-licensing Vendor Design Review.

The BWRX-300 leverages a unique combination of existing fuel that is currently used in operating reactors (and does not require HALEU), plant simplifications, proven components and a design based on already licensed reactor technology.  

There is growing global interest in the BWRX-300 in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere in Canada.

In August 2022, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began planning and preliminary licensing to potentially deploy a BWRX-300 at the Clinch River Site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. TVA has entered into a collaboration with OPG to coordinate efforts to move SMR technology forward. In addition, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and CNSC are collaborating on licensing the two projects.  

In June 2022, SaskPower announced that it selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Saskatchewan in the mid-2030s.

In Poland, ORLEN Synthos Green Energy (OSGE) and its partners started the pre-licensing process by submitting an application to Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency for assessment of the BWRX-300. OSGE said it plans to deploy a fleet of BWRX-300s with the potential for deployment of the first of those units by the end of the decade.

GEH has also begun the licensing process for the BWRX-300 in the U.K.

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