Nightscape of the Westmorland Street Bridge in Fredericton New Brunswick.

SMALL MODULAR REACTORS IN NEW BRUNSWICK

What is happening in New Brunswick?

New Brunswick is involved in the Pan-Canadian approach to the development and deployment of SMR. The approach addresses three streams.

Stream 1

On-Grid “ready deployable” SMR by late 2020s at Darlington.

Stream 2

On-Grid Advanced SMRs being developed in New Brunswick that bring additional benefit for deployment in early to mid 2030s.

Stream 3

VSMR for resource extraction and remote communities.

NB Power is working with two private-sector partners, ARC Clean Technology and Moltex Energy, to advance Generation IV Plus Grid sized SMR technology for use in New Brunswick.

The New Brunswick Energy Solutions Corporation, a provincial Crown corporation, committed $10 million in 2018 towards the establishment of an advanced SMR Research Cluster in New Brunswick. Moltex and ARC also each invested $5 million to progress research and development of their advanced technologies.

The Government of New Brunswick, through the Energy Solutions Corporation, is also playing a role in helping to map a Canadian strategy for the development of SMR technology.  In December 2019, New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work cooperatively for the development and deployment of SMR in Canada. In April 2021, Alberta also signed the MOU.

In February 2021, ARC was awarded $20 million in funding from the Government of New Brunswick to support its next phase of technology development.

In March 2021, Moltex received $50.5 million in funding from the Government of Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) and Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) to advance its technology development.