SaskPower Estevan BWRX-300

Executive Summary SaskPower Estevan BWRX-300 is Saskatchewan's first proposed commercial nuclear project — a deployment of up to two GE Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactors near the city of Estevan in the province's south-east corner. The project is led by SaskPower, Saskatchewan's Crown corporation utility and its principal electricity supplier, which has no existing nuclear fleet. If built, this would be the first commercial nuclear plant in Saskatchewan's history and a significant milestone in the country's effort to establish SMRs as a replicable clean baseload technology outside Ontario's established nuclear corridor.

How It Works & Differentiation

The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe boiling water reactor (BWR) derived from GE Hitachi's Generation III+ ESBWR design, which received Nuclear Regulatory Commission certification in the United States in 2014. The BWRX-300 is positioned as the tenth generation of GE's BWR lineage and is specifically engineered for simplified passive safety systems, reduced construction footprint, and lower overnight capital cost relative to prior boiling water designs. SaskPower selected the BWRX-300 in June 2022 following a four-year technology evaluation process, in part because Ontario Power Generation (OPG) had selected the same design in December 2021 for its Darlington New Nuclear Project — allowing SaskPower to learn from and de-risk against OPG's lead deployment, which is expected to be the first BWRX-300 to enter commercial operation in Canada.

Commercialization & Traction

Site selection has narrowed to two locations within approximately 10 km of Estevan: one at the Boundary Dam Reservoir and one at the Rafferty Reservoir, both in the RM of Cambria. A final site decision, originally expected in 2025, has been deferred to 2026. Canadian federal funding of CAD 74 million was committed in August 2023, split between Natural Resources Canada's Electricity Predevelopment Program and Environment and Climate Change Canada's Future Electricity Fund, to support pre-engineering work, environmental assessments, regulatory studies, and Indigenous and community engagement. SaskPower has also created SaskNuclear Inc., a dedicated subsidiary, to manage regulatory and business development for the project. In January 2024, SaskPower and GE Hitachi signed a formal agreement to advance SMR development, and in January 2026, nearly CAD 6 million was announced for a dedicated SMR Safety, Licensing, and Testing Centre at the University of Regina — signalling infrastructure investment beyond the project itself. Final Investment Decision is expected in 2029, with construction targeted to begin as early as 2030 and first power targeted for 2034.

Scalability & Strategic Context

The strategic rationale for Saskatchewan's nuclear programme is rooted in the province's geography and resource profile. Saskatchewan lacks the topography for large-scale hydropower and, while it has strong wind and solar resources, requires cost-effective zero-carbon baseload to anchor a reliable grid as it transitions away from coal. The province is also one of the world's leading uranium producers, making a domestic nuclear industry a logical downstream extension of its existing resource economy. SaskPower has positioned the BWRX-300 alongside Ontario's nuclear lead, emphasising fleet-based learning as the primary cost reduction lever: each subsequent unit in a multi-project programme should carry lower construction costs and schedule risk than the first-of-a-kind Darlington unit. The Saskatchewan provincial government formalised this strategic direction in its First Energy Security Strategy released in October 2025, which explicitly targets a nuclear-powered future leveraging both SMR and, over the longer term, large-scale reactor technologies.