US, Canadian and Polish firms sign contracts for developing nuclear reactors

A group of American, Canadian and Polish corporations have signed an agreement in Washington to invest $400 million in jointly developing small nuclear reactors, some of which will be built in Poland by state energy giant Orlen.

The signatories are GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) of the US, Canada’s Ontario Power Generation (OPG), and Synthos Green Energy (SGE), a Polish firm that has a joint venture with Orlen to develop and deploy nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs).

“Thanks to this agreement, Poland gains access to the latest American nuclear technology, which is now being developed jointly by Poland, Canada and the US,” Synthos Green Energy’s CEO, Rafał Kasprów, told Polskie Radio.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy is the developer of the BWRX-300 small modular reaction and Ontario Power Generation is building the world’s first BWRX-300 reactor, which is set to be complete by the end of 2028.

The aim of the newly agreed partnership is for the four entities involved to ensure that the reactor’s design “is deployable in multiple jurisdictions”, meaning it can “be licensed and deployed in Canada, the US, Poland and beyond”, says GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.

“This unprecedented collaboration, which spans three countries, will offer benefits to each of the team members and demonstrates confidence in the role that our SMR technology will play in helping nations meet decarbonisation and energy security goals,” said the firm’s CEO, Jay Wileman.

The creation of the joint venture between Orlen and SGE was approved by the European Commission last week. It had already last year submitted an application to Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency for assessment of the BWRX-300 reactor and has begun selecting potential sites for its deployment.

They plan to announce 25 such locations next month, where 79 SMRs are to be built, with the first unit intended to be deployed by the end of this decade. By 2036, they aim to have a network of SMRs with a total capacity of around 10,000 MWe.

Yesterday’s agreement will ensure that “the implementation of [SMR] technology in Poland will be more effective and already in this decade the Orlen Group will provide customers with cheap, zero-emission energy from nuclear power”, said Orlen’s CEO, Daniel Obajtek, yesterday.

Poland’s ambassador to the US, Marek Magierowski, who was present at yesterday’s signing ceremony, noted that the agreement “is not only about our energy transformation, but also about the long-term vision of our alliance with the US and Canada”, reports industry news service Energetyka24.

Poland, which currently generates no power from nuclear, has ambitious plans to develop the sector over the coming decades. As well as SMR projects being led by Orlen and other state-owned and private firms, the government is also planning traditional full-scale nuclear plants.

In October, it picked the United States as its international partner in developing the first such plant, which is scheduled to open in 2033. Soon after, South Korea was chosen as the partner in a similar project being developed by a group of private and state-owned firms.

The government sees nuclear as a vital tool in reducing Poland’s reliance on fossil fuels, a task made more urgent by the European Union’s green energy policies and by the war in Ukraine, which has seen Warsaw accelerate its plans to abandon Russian energy imports.

Main image credit: TVA/Twitter

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.