Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has completed installation of the reactor basemat for the first unit of the Darlington BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) project in Canada.

OPG said in a statement that the basemat module, weighing about around 950 tonnes and measuring about 37 metres in diameter, was lifted into place on 22 April and lowered into the reactor building shaft about 35 metres below ground.

The precision lift, the equivalent of lifting more than three Airbus A380 airliners, was executed by one of the world’s largest crawler cranes, lowering the material within millimetre precision and represents the first foundation of a new nuclear reactor to be built in Ontario in over 30 years.

According to OPG, the BWRX-300 plant will be the first SMR in the G7 group of nations.