Bruce Power LP shut the 750-megawatt Unit 4 at the Bruce nuclear power station in Ontario for planned maintenance, the company said in a release Wednesday.
The company expects the unit to return in about a month.
During the outage, the company said, workers will inspect the unit’s steam generators and heat transport system.
The unit last shut for maintenance from March 19 to April 18, 2007. It is on a 12-month cycle.
Before the company replaces the steam generators on Units 3 and 4, it will continue to shut the units for maintenance more often than the Bruce B units (about every 12 months for Bruce A versus about 30 months for Bruce B) but for shorter outages (1 month for Bruce A versus 2 months for Bruce B).
The company plans to replace the Unit 3 and 4 steam generators by 2013, after Units 1 and 2 return to service in the 2009-10 timeframe.
The 6,261 MW Bruce station is located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron north of Kincardine, about 155 miles (250 km) northwest of Toronto. There are four 750 MW Units 1-4 at the A station (which entered service in 1977-1979) and three 822 MW Units 5-7 and one 795 MW Unit 8 at the B station (1984-1987).
Unit 6 shut by March 24 and likely will return in late March. Unit 7 shut Jan. 27 and likely will return in late March.
The company expects to increase the output of Unit 8 to about 822 MW by modifying the fuel-loading system by 2009.
Ontario Hydro, the former province-owned power company, shut Units 1 and 2 in 1997 and 1995, respectively, because they needed extensive upgrades.
One MW powers about 1,000 homes in Ontario.
Bruce Power LP, of Tiverton, Ontario, operates the entire Bruce complex and leases the Bruce B station from Ontario Power Generation, the province-owned generating company.
BRUCE A RESTART
Bruce Power continues to work on a C$5.25 billion project to fully restore the Bruce A station.
The company plans to restart Unit 2 in late 2009 and Unit 1 in early 2010, and replace the fuel channels and steam generators on Units 3 and 4 by 2013.
The return of Units 1 and 2 would replace more than 20 percent of the province’s 6,400 MW of coal-fired generation, which the government wants to shut for health and environmental reasons by 2014.
Bruce is also looking to refurbish the four Bruce B reactors and is considering building new reactors at the station.
In January 2007, Bruce launched an environmental assessment of the new build project that will take about three years to complete. The project would add 4,000 MW of electricity to the grid by about 2016. The company plans to use the environmental assessment to select the best reactor design, location on the Bruce site and waste management system.
Bruce said it would need to refurbish all four Bruce B units between 2015 and 2020. The company said it would decide in the future whether it makes economic sense to refurbish the existing units or replace them with new reactors. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Walter Bagley)
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