By 2050, we need to more than double the amount of electricity currently being supplied to Canadians in order to meet the growing demand for electricity to power Canada’s economy. There is no one solution to meeting this demand – we just need to get building, and to build faster. Which is why today’s news that the province of Ontario has greenlit the construction of a first-of-its-kind small modular reactor in Darlington is welcome. This project could energize 1.2 million homes and will help contribute $13.7 billion to Ontario’s GDP through its construction.
Small modular reactors are a game changing technology necessary to electrifying Canada. They can provide stable, affordable baseload power and support the integration of variable renewables. This announcement also signifies the start of an important tipping point: once we’ve built the first SMR, we can build the second, and the third. We can get moving to providing reliable electricity to more Canadians-- and continue to power the Canadian economy both now, and in the future.
- Francis Bradley, President and CEO, Electricity Canada