Ontario Power Generation (OPG) on Wednesday announced an ambitious business partnership that expects to have a completed BWRX-300 Small Modular Reactor in place at Canada’s Darlington Nuclear Power Plant by late 2028.
3 Likes
Has the fuel problem been resolved?
We learned that Russia was the only source of fuel for such reactors. And it will take several years to come up with a domestic supply.
Does Ontario Power have a fuel source lined up?
Looks like the fuel is not an issue with so many countries selecting the BWRX-300:
Fermi Energia, a privately held company formed to develop a small modular reactor (SMR) in Estonia, announced that it has selected GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s (GEH’s) BWRX-300 design for deployment.
Kalev Kallemets, CEO of Fermi Energia, said in September last year that the company’s nuclear technology selection process had begun in 2019, with a mapping of a large list of companies from around the world that were all offering new advanced nuclear technologies. Decision-makers whittled that list down to the “more successful” designs. From the successful ones, in turn, leaders chose the three they felt were most suitable for Estonian conditions and its electricity system. The company had sent tenders to GEH, NuScale, and Rolls-Royce on Sept. 15, with bids requested by December, including comprehensive technical documentation needed to estimate the construction cost. On Feb. 8, the group announced GEH had been selected as its top choice.
The technology selection by Fermi Energia is the latest win for GEH’s BWRX-300. In January, GEH, Ontario Power Generation (OPG), SNC-Lavalin, and Aecon announced the signing of a contract for the deployment of a BWRX-300 SMR at OPG’s Darlington New Nuclear Project site. In August 2022, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began planning and preliminary licensing for potential deployment of a BWRX-300 at its Clinch River Site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And, in June last year, SaskPower announced that it had selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Saskatchewan in the mid-2030s.
Meanwhile, ORLEN Synthos Green Energy (OSGE) and its partners started the pre-licensing process in Poland by submitting an application for assessment of the BWRX-300 to the country’s National Atomic Energy Agency. OSGE plans to deploy a fleet of BWRX-300s with the potential for deployment of the first of those units by the end of this decade. GEH has also begun the design certification process for the BWRX-300 in the UK. The company said it has memoranda of understanding or other agreements in place with companies in Canada, Czech Republic, Poland, UK, U.S., and Sweden, among others, to support the global deployment of BWRX-300 technology.
1 Like