Member Spotlight: Kinectrics

Atlantica recently sat down with Julie West, the Senior Vice President of Business Improvements and Compliance for Kinectrics, to learn more about the business’ operations in New Brunswick and across Canada.

Q: Can you tell us about Kinectrics’ global profile?

A: Kinectrics is a trusted supplier of innovative and sustainable life cycle management solutions for the electricity industry.  As a management-owned, private company headquartered in Canada, Kinectrics has 30 unique laboratories and test facilities, a diverse fleet of field inspection equipment and an award-winning team of over 1,200 engineers and technical experts.  Among its 20 locations across 7 countries, a newly opened office in Saint John, New Brunswick will support Atlantic Canada.

Their team of experts support transmission and distribution services as well as the nuclear industry, providing services in design and engineering, analysis and licensing, material and components testing, robotic tool development, maintenance and inspections, equipment qualification, radioactive chemistry, and medical radioisotopes.

Kinectrics has been an integral part of supporting CANDU reactors, the largest nuclear power plants in the world, and are proud partners with developers of small modular reactors (SMRs) in Canada and internationally.

Q: What is Kinectrics’ focus for Canadian operations?

A: Across Canada, Kinectrics has eight locations with offices and specialized laboratory and manufacturing facilities strategically located in Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. These locations are in close proximity to generating stations and utility customers, making it easy to provide timely support in the field.

In support of nuclear customers, Kinectrics develops and runs equipment to provide outage and testing support at the stations, builds parts and equipment, and tests and certifies commercial-off-the-shelf equipment.  Kinectrics provides full-service design engineering capability for modifications and new designs, and offers the largest and most experienced nuclear safety and licensing firm in Canada.

Many of the labs are located at the head office in Etobicoke, Ontario. Kinectrics also operates facilities near Bruce Power, including the state-of-the-art laundry facility which cleans and repairs personal protective clothing worn in the nuclear stations.  The company has a proven track record of investing locally and developing good quality, long terms jobs in professions such as engineering and science, as well as technician and general labour roles.

As the nuclear industry grows in New Brunswick, Kinectrics will look for the opportunity to build facilities here and expand its presence.

Q: Medical isotopes are an important part of cancer care and research. Tell us more.

A: It is exciting to leverage the synergy of clean energy production through nuclear power with life-saving isotope production through its company Isogen, a joint venture between Kinectrics and Framatome. Isogen works with nuclear power operators to enable the production of life-saving medical isotopes. Isogen worked with Bruce Power to design, construct, and commission the first production system to irradiate short-lived medical isotopes using a commercial power reactor.  Isogen is currently producing Lutetium-177 (Lu-177), a therapeutic isotope that is very successful in treating prostate cancer and neuroendocrine tumors.  Lu-177 destroys cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unaffected.

Kinectrics continues to invest to bring additional isotope production capacity online at Bruce Power, to expand production capabilities to produce other critical medical isotopes beyond Lu-177, and to develop isotope production in other reactor types including certain small modular reactors.

Q: What’s the New Brunswick connection?

A: Kinectrics has long been a supplier to NB Power and a recent agreement has allowed an expansion of services to the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. That, as well as the clean energy cluster here that includes ARC Clean Technology, Moltex Energy and UNBs Centre for Nuclear Energy Research triggered the company owners to open an office in Saint John and to commit to hiring and growing local capability.  Dean Taylor, an experienced physicist and engineer leads the NB office in Saint John, where a dozen local engineers and scientists work, with the aim to expand to 40 over the next couple of years.

There is great synergy between Kinectrics’ experience with operating reactors and SMRs, and the goals for New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada to be a world leader in clean energy.  We are pleased to be able to support the vision of investing in carbon free nuclear energy and in growing the local supply chain, including the supply chain for the development of advanced reactors right here in New Brunswick.

To learn more about Kinectrics, visit their website: https://www.kinectrics.com/.

To learn more about other Atlantica members, visit: https://www.atlanticaenergy.org/about-us/#our-partners.