Ontario Power Generation and province plan 3 more small modular reactors

Ontario Power Generation and the province are planning three more small modular reactors at the site of the Darlington nuclear power plant.

One SMR is already being built there, with construction of the first unit set to be complete by 2028.

OPG president Ken Hartwick says the planned fleet of SMRs would produce 1,200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power the equivalent of 1.2 million homes by the mid-2030s.

That is around when rising electricity demand is projected to surpass supply by about 5,000 megawatts and Energy Minister Todd Smith has made a number of recent announcements aimed at closing that gap, including a new, large-scale nuclear plant at Bruce Power on Lake Huron.

Smith says it is part of Ontario's plan to meet electricity demand with emissions-free power, though some critics have warned about relying on SMRs as a relatively untested power source. Small modular reactors use similar technology to traditional nuclear power plants, but they are much smaller.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 7, 2023.