RC113 JulyAugust 2024 - Magazine - Page 11
If there is one province positioned to play
the nuclear card in anticipation of the growing
electrification of this country’s economy, it’s Ontario
where most of the country’s reactors are located,
producing 13,144 MW of electricity or the equivalent
of 34 per cent of the province’s needs.
ONTARIO POWER GENERATION
In the summer of 2023, Ontario Power Generation completed the refurbishment of Darlington Nuclear Generating
Station’s Unit 3, 169 days ahead of schedule.
an option for the province in the future… so that our site
can be leveraged to help build out that capacity in Ontario.”
A project which if it ever comes to fruition, would increase
Bruce’s generating capacity by an additional 4.8 MW.
All this planning is not only in anticipation of the province’s rising energy needs (IESO predicts an average two
per cent a year increase over the coming decades), but also
says Dalzell is tied to “the 昀椀ght against climate change,” and
the reality that “there aren’t a lot of nuclear projects going
forward. The only one you can point to is the Darlington SMR
project,” made possible by the fact an environmental assessment and the requisite permits were granted back in 2012.
SMRs or small modular reactors, as described by the
International Atomic Agency “are advanced nuclear reactors that have the capacity of up to 300 MW per unit.” Key
di昀昀erentiators include the fact they are a fraction of the size
of a conventional power reactor. They’re modular, making it
possible for systems and components to be factory assembled and transported to a location for installation.
Initial plans called for a single SMR to be built at Darling-
RENEWCANADA.NET
ton. However last summer, Minister Smith announced
that total would be bumped to four reactors. “So, it will
be a four-pack of small modular reactors going onsite at
Darlington. That will be 1.2 gigawatts of clean, reliable,
a昀昀ordable electricity coming out of that site on top of the
CANDU reactors located there,” which have a current
installed capacity of 3,512 MW.
Smith observes there are a “number of partners collaborating on a 昀椀rst of a kind project. Partners that were
involved in building the CANDU reactors years ago.
Atkins Réalis and Aecon are leading the work along with
OPG and E.S. Fox.”
Embracing Smith’s “昀椀rst of a kind” description of
Ontario’s SMRs, Sandra Dykxhoorn, Ontario Power Generation’s vice president, New Nuclear Growth proudly
observes that “OPG was the 昀椀rst utility in the Western
world to declare it was going to build a commercial scale
SMR [so] we’re hoping to receive a licence to construct
by the end of this year… begin construction in 2025…
and complete construction of the 昀椀rst one by end of 2028.
JULY/AUGUST 2024 – RENEW CANADA 11
