“Europe’s electricity story proves that energy security is not found in a single perfect source of power, but in the strength of a diverse grid, where nuclear, water, wind, sun, and fuel each carry part of the load.” – MJ Martin
Canada Provides the Starting Point
Canada begins any discussion about electricity from an enviable position. In 2024, hydroelectricity generated 56.1 percent of Canadian electricity, making water by far our largest source. Combustible fuels, including natural gas, coal, petroleum, and biomass, provided 22.1 percent, nuclear supplied 13.4 percent, and wind and solar together contributed 8.4 percent. Statistics Canada reports that wind generation increased 15.6 percent in 2024, while solar increased 12.1 percent. (Statistics Canada)
Canada therefore resembles a giant electrical reservoir. Much of our grid is built around stored water that can be released when electricity is required. Europe presents a very different picture. Instead of one dominant continental resource, the European Union resembles a toolbox containing almost every major electricity technology.
Europe Has No Single Electricity Model
Across the EU in 2024, renewable energy collectively produced approximately 47 percent of electricity, fossil fuels about 29 percent, and nuclear approximately 23 percent. (European Commission) Looking at individual technologies rather than broad categories reveals an even more interesting picture. Nuclear supplied about 23 percent of EU electricity, wind 18 percent, natural gas 16 percent, hydro 13 percent, solar 11 percent, coal approximately 10 percent, and petroleum products about 2 percent. (European Commission)
Those averages, however, conceal enormous differences between countries.
France produced approximately 67 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. Denmark obtained about 58 percent from wind, while Austria produced about 58 percent from hydroelectricity. Hungary and Luxembourg recorded the EU’s highest solar shares at approximately 24 percent, although solar was not their largest overall electricity source. (European Commission)
This is the central lesson of European electricity. Geography, history, domestic resources, public policy, economics, and existing infrastructure shape each national grid.
Nuclear, Wind, Hydro, and Gas
Nuclear power dominates electricity production in countries including France, Slovakia, Belgium, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland, Czechia, and Slovenia. Hydro is particularly important in Austria, Sweden, Latvia, Croatia, Portugal, and Romania. Wind has become the leading individual technology in countries such as Denmark, Germany, Spain, and Lithuania.
Natural gas remains critical in Italy, Ireland, Greece, Malta, and the Netherlands. Poland remains the EU’s most prominent coal-dependent electricity system, although coal generation across Europe has been declining substantially.
The resulting European grid is less like one enormous power station and more like an orchestra. Nuclear provides sustained output, hydro provides controllability, gas provides dispatchability, and wind and solar provide increasing quantities of low-carbon energy when environmental conditions permit.
The Canadian Lesson
Canada should examine Europe carefully, but not imitate it blindly. Our geography gives us advantages that most European countries cannot reproduce. Hydro provides enormous quantities of renewable electricity, while Ontario’s nuclear fleet gives Canada another major source of dependable, low-carbon generation. Canada also possesses significant wind, solar, natural gas, and uranium resources. The Canada Energy Regulator notes that Canada produced approximately 81 TWh of nuclear electricity in 2024 while remaining one of the world’s major uranium producers. (Canada Energy Regulator)
Europe demonstrates that the future probably does not belong to one electricity technology. It belongs to systems of complementary technologies.
Canada’s Emerging SMR Future
Canada’s nuclear future is increasingly moving toward small modular reactors, or SMRs, which could complement hydroelectricity, conventional nuclear, wind, solar, and natural gas with dependable, low-carbon generation that can be constructed in smaller increments.
Ontario is clearly leading this transformation through Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington New Nuclear Project, where four 300 MW GE Hitachi BWRX-300 reactors are planned, representing 1,200 MW of eventual generating capacity and enough electricity for approximately 1.2 million homes. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission issued the construction licence for the first reactor in April 2025, making Darlington considerably more advanced than any other Canadian SMR proposal. (Canada)
Saskatchewan represents the next major opportunity. SaskPower has selected the same BWRX-300 technology, is evaluating sites near Estevan, and is conducting the regulatory, environmental, Indigenous consultation, engineering, and economic work necessary to support a final investment decision expected in 2029. Importantly, Saskatchewan has not yet committed to a specific number of reactors, so these units should be described as actively planned rather than committed. (SaskPower)
Beyond Ontario and Saskatchewan is a second tier of what might reasonably be called lightly planned or early-stage SMR projects. In New Brunswick, NB Power has proposed an ARC-100 advanced SMR at Point Lepreau, and its application for a licence to prepare the site remains under regulatory review. Ottawa has also provided $25 million for predevelopment work examining up to 600 MW of additional SMR capacity at Point Lepreau, suggesting that New Brunswick’s eventual nuclear expansion could extend beyond a single demonstration reactor. (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission)
Alberta is earlier in the process, developing a provincial nuclear roadmap and regulatory framework rather than committing to a particular SMR design, site, or number of units. (Alberta.ca) Canada is also examining microreactors for the Arctic and remote locations, with the federal government investing more than $40 million to assess Canadian-controlled microreactor technology for northern defence facilities and establishing an objective of demonstrating a Canadian-controlled Generation IV microreactor by 2035. (Canada)
Mining represents another potentially enormous market. Natural Resources Canada has identified 24 current or potential off-grid mines that could be suitable for SMR deployment, although these should be viewed as prospective applications rather than announced reactor projects. (Natural Resources Canada)
Canada therefore should not be described as simply planning four or six SMRs. A more accurate picture is that four reactors are firmly planned at Darlington, additional reactors are under active development in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, and a much broader potential fleet is beginning to emerge across Alberta, the North, remote communities, defence installations, and resource projects. Like the early railway system, the significance may ultimately lie not in the first few kilometres of track, but in the national network that follows once the technology, supply chain, workforce, regulatory framework, and economics have been proven.
Questions to Ponder
* Should Canada therefore think less about choosing between nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, and natural gas, and more about determining how they work together?
* Should hydro reservoirs increasingly function as enormous natural batteries supporting wind and solar?
* Should provinces without abundant hydro reconsider nuclear power?
* And should Canada build stronger interprovincial transmission so that Quebec hydro, Ontario nuclear, Prairie wind and solar, and regional natural gas generation can support one another?
Conclusion
Europe’s greatest electricity lesson may be surprisingly Canadian: energy security comes not from finding one perfect source of electricity, but from building a resilient system in which different resources compensate for one another.
The European comparison is especially interesting because Canada is actually more dependent on its leading technology, hydro, than the EU is on any single generating technology. That distinction could form the central thesis of a follow-up paper on Canadian energy security.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.