Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Saskatchewan’s SMR final decision impacted by Ontario delays
This screenshot from the OPG video announcing it is going ahead with the Darlington New Nuclear project show construction of the first reactor in the spring of 2025. The circular area is likely the start of the massive hole that will hold the reactor and its containment building. YouTube/OPG
In 2022, SaskPower selected the General Electric Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactor based on the fact Ontario Power Generation would be building the same model of reactor first, and Saskatchewan would benefit from Ontario’s experience.
At the time, the cost for SMRs was expected to be rather modest, in the $2 to $3 billion range. But OPG’s Q3 results announced on Nov. 10, 2026, bring that into question.
Back in 2022, then-SaskPower Minister Don Morgan said, “A small reactor would cost in the range of $5 billion, so they’re certainly not inexpensive.”
Then-Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith said, “I’m going to suggest that the $5 billion number is quite high.”
Right, then-SaskPower Minister Don Morgan and Ontario’s then-Minister of Energy Todd Smith during the nuclear announcement in Regina on Feb. 25, 2022. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
He was the one who said during the press conference, “We don’t think it’s going to be nearly as high as you indicated ($5 billion each).”
Morgan added, “I would rather use a high figure and have it come in substantially lower than then one where we have to say it’s this much higher or have an overrun in construction. We’ll be watching carefully, as Ontario goes ahead, to make sure that the processes that they follow work well here, and we’re able to they have a significant benefit already. They are already licensed for nuclear facility, we have to go through both provincial and federal licensing requirements. And we want to watch that, as we as we go forward as we watch cost containment.”
Back in 2023, the expectation was for the first Darlington SMR go online in 2028, as reported here. That timeline would have allowed for one to two years of operation before SaskPower firmly committed to going ahead. Construction was going on in earnest in the spring of 2025, when Ontario greenlit the construction of four BWRX-300 SMRs. At the time, the total cost was expected to be $20.9 billion.
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In May, 2025, the numbers released by OPG and Ontario were:
$20.9 billion – ($6.1 billion FOAK + $1.6 billion common infrastructure) / 3 NOAK reactors = $4.4 billion per additional (NOAK) reactor.
(FOAK – First of a kind, NOAK – Nth of a kind)
That number gives a $7.7 billion expected cost for the first reactor.
Saskatchewan is currently looking at building two 300 megawatt-scale reactors west of Estevan, on the Rafferty Reservoir. The location and number of reactors was announced during a Sept. 29 press conference in Saskatoon. At that event Premier Scott Moe made it known the province was also looking at building two 1,000 megawatt-scale reactors in northwest Saskatchewan on the North Saskatchewan River. Back in January, the technology selection process for choosing a large-scale reactor design was initiated.
Eighteen months since Ontario committed to four reactors, the project is now considered overtime and overbudget.
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Here’s what OPG’s Q3 report said, verbatim, with highlights on the key passage added:
Darlington New Nuclear Project
OPG is continuing construction of the G7’s first small modular reactor (SMR) under the Darlington New Nuclear Project (DNNP). The DNNP remains central to Ontario’s plan to meet growing electricity demand with reliable and clean power. To date, the project has achieved important construction milestones, including installation of the 2.1-million-pound basemat – the first nuclear foundation laid in Canada in more than 30 years.
During the third quarter of 2026, the project completed assembly of the tunnel boring machine ahead of tunnelling activities expected to commence in the last quarter of 2026. The machine will bore and line the condenser cooling water tunnel, an essential element for bringing Canada’s first SMR online. The project also completed the first turbine building pour, marking a key milestone for the building foundation.
As previously noted in OPG’s 2025 annual and 2026 second quarter Management’s Discussion and Analysis (MD&A), the DNNP is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that could affect project cost and schedule. While OPG is undertaking a comprehensive assessment of the project cost and schedule, DNNP Unit 1 is no longer expected to achieve the previously disclosed commercial operation date target of October 2030 or be completed within the previously disclosed estimated cost of $7.7 billion, inclusive of required systems and services that would be common to all SMRs planned as part of the project. This reflects GE Vernova Hitachi (GEVH) Nuclear Energy’s ongoing engineering for its first-of-a-kind SMR, which has impacts on construction execution and supply chain performance. OPG is working with GEVH to complete outstanding engineering scope and move the project forward as quickly as possible.
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The assessment of the project cost and schedule will be informed by the completion of engineering scope, including construction deliverables. The assessment will also include further evaluation of engineering design maturity and completion timelines, first of a kind design complexity impacts on construction and procurement assumptions, updated market conditions including inflationary and geopolitical risk, other residual risks, and the effectiveness of mitigation and recovery actions.
The assessment of the project cost and schedule is currently expected to be substantially completed by mid-2027. OPG intends to provide further updates as additional material information becomes available.
“We have made meaningful progress in building the G7’s first small modular reactor, and critical work continues every day on site,” said Butcher. “At the same time, we have identified risks that will impact Unit 1’s schedule and budget. As we continue construction, we are working to fully assess those impacts, and establish mitigation measures and a cost and schedule outlook that we can stand behind. As work progresses, we will share the information transparently.”
—-
It should be noted that the first reactor was always expected to cost more that the subsequent reactors. Those NOAK reactors had been expected to cost $4.4 billion each, as of May, 2025.
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We’re engaged, but haven’t said “I do” yet
While SaskPower has selected the BWRX-300 and has been working through the licensing process, it is still not firmly committed until a final investment decision is made. To use an analogy, Saskatchewan may be engaged to GEVH’ BWRX-300, the venue has recently been announced and save-the-date cards sent, but we have not yet said, “I do.” And there is still the chance we could end up marrying the possibly better looking maid of honour instead.
The final investment decision, the wedding vows, as it were, was for several years expected to take place in 2029, with construction to start in 2030 and first electrons to the grid in the 2034-35 range. But Minister of Crown Investments Corporation and Minister Responsible for SaskPower Jeremy Harrison told Pipeline Online in an Oct. 16 podcast that those timelines would be delayed. Note – this discussion was three weeks before the OPG announcement of delays and overruns.
In the podcast, Pipeline Online asked, “What’s happening on the timeline on the SMR, and what’s the timeline on the large reactors?”
Regarding SMRs timelines, Harrison responded, “As far as the SMR decision, I said this at the news conference the other day too: We’re going to make a decision when a decision is ready to be made. And you know the fact that we’ve had multi-year delays at Darlington on the OPG SMR project will mean that we will not be in the position to make a decision on the time frame which it had been first laid out, which was a number of years ago when that had been first announced.
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“So you know we’re going to make a decision when a decision is ready to be made, meaning we have to have cost certainty and know what an nth of a kind unit is going to cost, and then be able to do that comparison with what you know incremental production would be from large scale nuclear versus SMR. But we’re going through the licensing process, nonetheless, because we need to actually have this initiated, and that’s why we did the Rafferty selection. It made sense as the right site, but you know we’re going to be making these decisions when they’re ready to be made too.”
There is still a possibility that the Estevan area site could host a large-scale reactor instead of SMRs, i.e. the better looking maid-of-honour. And if it does, that maid-of-honour could be one of three identical triplets, i.e. a third large scale reactor to go along with the two planned for northwest Saskatchewan. Doing so would mean a common fleet across Saskatchewan, instead of a mixed fleet of SMRs and large reactors.
Harrison said, “I’ve been very clear, including at the announcement, that we’re keeping an open mind on potentially large scale in in the Estevan region as well, but we are initiating the the process for the site licensing at Rafferty, which was a new announcement.”
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