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First Nations Power Authority and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy announce collaboration

TORONTO — First Nations Power Authority (FNPA) and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) announced a collaboration on training and employment opportunities available to qualified Indigenous peoples in Canada.

GEH and FNPA encourage Indigenous peoples to apply for consideration for this unique career opportunity. All qualified applicants will be considered.

As a participating organization in Canada’s SMR Action Plan, FNPA has identified that employment opportunities in the nuclear sector offer several benefits for Indigenous communities. Through the collaboration between FNPA and GEH, FNPA will engage communities to support the recruitment of qualified Indigenous peoples for these positions. GEH will train any Canadian Indigenous peoples hired as field service technicians to support maintenance and refueling outages at nuclear power plants.

“FNPA’s collaboration with GE Hitachi is an important opportunity to engage Indigenous peoples in the creation of clean energy options with the future nuclear fleet in Canada,” said Guy Lonechild, President and CEO, First Nations Power Authority in a statement. “FNPA got its start connecting Indigenous communities with corporate Canada so our work with GE Hitachi is a natural next step towards economic reconciliation in the nuclear sector.”

GEH is planning to hire and begin training new field service technicians this year in preparation for the 2022 outage season at boiling water reactors (BWRs) that GEH services in the U.S. These employees will be trained and certified to service BWR technology and will receive critical hands-on experience servicing BWRs in advance of future SMR deployment in Ontario and across Canada.

“GE Hitachi values diversity in our workforce, including equal employment opportunities for Indigenous people,” said Lisa McBride, Canada SMR Country Leader for GEH. “We are working to develop a highly-skilled workforce to serve the current nuclear fleet, with the potential opportunity to service the BWRX-300 SMR fleet when deployed in Canada.”

Outages are scheduled at nuclear plants worldwide every 18-24 months to refuel, inspect and maintain the reactors. The field service technicians who perform this work are highly specialized and travel from plant to plant during the refueling outage seasons, normally scheduled in the spring and fall to align with lower energy consumption.