U-Battery Canada Limited

Overview

As the Canadian subsidiary of the global nuclear supply chain company Urenco, U-Battery Canada Limited is dedicated to the advancement of nuclear innovation through the development and deployment of SMRs. U-Battery’s advanced SMR aims to replace diesel power with clean, safe, and cost-effective energy for a variety of applications, including remote communities and other off-grid locations such as mining operations in northern regions. The U- Battery SMR is a cogeneration unit capable of producing both heat and power, differentiating it from traditional SMRs.

As part of our dual-track approach of exploring the potential in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK), U-Battery is developing an innovative, low-carbon, market-ready solution designed to address the emerging energy needs as well as sustainability and carbon reduction policies in both markets.

U-Battery is working collaboratively with governments, utilities and licensing authorities to advance its first-of-a-kind project. In July 2020, U-Battery was selected to proceed to Phase 2 of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) competition in the UK. Under the program, U-Battery will receive £10 million ($CAD 16.9 million) in funding to conduct design and development work, the next step in bringing its SMR technology to market. This represents a major milestone as the initial call for SMR developers resulted in 23 applications, only three of which, including U-Battery, have progressed through to Phase 2.

In parallel, U-Battery has also made progress through the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ (CNL) siting competition to establish a first-of—a-kind SMR demonstration unit at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s (AECL) Chalk River Laboratories campus in Chalk River, Ontario. Further, U-Battery has established a service agreement with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for pre-licensing vendor design review, as well as a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bruce Power for design review and feasibility services. Combined, these developments will help ensure that U-Battery’s design is well positioned to meet regulatory and feasibility requirements as well as Canadian codes and standards as it works towards commercial deployment.

The SMR Action Plan

In 2018, the federal government released Canada’s SMR Roadmap, the culmination of ten months of workshops and Indigenous engagement sessions aimed at fostering a collective vision statement for the eventual rollout of SMR technology. This Roadmap brought forward 53 recommendations and signalled that the Canadian nuclear supply chain and the Government of Canada were aligned on a path forward.

The SMR Action Plan will provide U-Battery with a foundation to accelerate the development of its advanced SMR. U-Battery sees the Action Plan as a potentially disruptive strategy, that will leverage the best of the private sector, various levels of government as well as research and development. In this new Canadian landscape, U-Battery knows that its initial capital investment will be adequately supplemented by sound fiscal policies and the right mix of creative funding programs and fiscal relief mechanisms that recognize SMRs as an undisputed source of clean energy. A strong, multinational Action Plan will strengthen U-Battery’s ongoing commitment to Canada.

U-Battery readily endorses the core principles of this Action Plan. We understand that suppliers need to work collaboratively with governments to facilitate the consolidation of a strong Team Canada approach. We realize the opportunities that SMRs will provide in terms of decarbonizing our economy. We recognize our obligation to mitigate nuclear waste. And we are committed to nurture and leverage a skilled and diverse workforce that will shape Canada’s nuclear innovation sector into a domestic and international powerhouse.

The SMR Roadmap played a significant role in U-Battery’s Canadian development efforts, which include progress and agreements with CNSC, CNL and Bruce Power, to name a few. The culmination of Canada’s SMR Action Plan represents a tangible advancement for our long- term Canadian development and deployment goals. Conservative estimates place the potential value for SMRs in Canada at $5.3 billion between 2025 and 2040. In fact, we believe that SMRs hold the potential of doing much more than helping our country get back to what it was: by capitalizing on its core characteristics, U-Battery believes that our advanced SMR can spur economic growth while leading Canada’s long-term decarbonization efforts and steer the country towards environmental sustainability. U-Battery is keen to play its part in reenergizing the Canadian economy while diversifying its energy mix.

ACTIONS