SNC-Lavalin is consolidating its position in the nuclear industry in Canada by announcing, in less than a week, three major agreements to extend the operations of existing power plants and participate in the development of a technology aimed at reusing nuclear waste.
SNC-Lavalin multiplies announcements in the sector. On Wednesday, it confirmed it had landed a $20 million contract, through its subsidiary Candu Energy, to support the refurbishment of turbojet engines at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington nuclear plant.
In partnership with GE Steam Power, the work aims to extend the facility’s activities by 30 years, so that it can supply electricity until 2055, according to SNC-Lavalin.
The previous day, Tuesday, Bruce Power announced that it had selected SNC-Lavalin to help design the nuclear fuel channel installation tooling for Unit 3 of its nuclear power plant, located near Lake Huron.
Bruce Power is a corporation made up of Canadian energy companies, including distributor TC Energy — formerly TransCanada — and Cameco, which is one of the world’s largest uranium producers.
In the context of the fight against climate change, there is growing interest in nuclear energy, notes Julianne den Decker, vice-president at Candu Energy, a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin. Nuclear power plants are again becoming an increasingly considered alternative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, she believes.
“These installations can, so to speak, be deployed almost everywhere. Their footprint on the territories remains small for the concentration of energy they can produce,” she says, saying that the Montreal company can rely on the expertise developed in the sector since the 1970s to earn market shares.
Small Modular Reactor Market
In recent years, SNC-Lavalin has also deployed efforts and energies to position itself in the emerging sector of small modular reactors (SMRs). These are nuclear power plants with a capacity of less than 300 megawatts (MW), which is considerably less than typical reactors, whose power is rather between 700 MW and 1500 MW.
On the sidelines of the annual conference of the Canadian Nuclear Association which took place last week in Ottawa, SNC-Lavalin announced a partnership with the British company Moltex, the value of which has not been disclosed.
The latter is currently developing technology to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from the Point Lepreau Generating Station in New Brunswick, in order to reuse the plutonium to power SMRs.
This partnership is in addition to another, announced in February, to support Rolls-Royce in the development of PRMs which could be put into service as early as 2030. SNC-Lavalin has also led the modular design of this model.
As part of the most recent agreement with Rolls-Royce, the Montreal company must extend its support to other facets ranging from the safety of facilities to waste management, including handling and mechanical engineering.