Bruce Ontario reactor offline after line trips

In addition to taking Unit 6 offline, the line outage caused Bruce to slightly reduce the output of a couple of other reactors, the company said.

The line connects the 6,261 MW Bruce station located in Tiverton about 155 miles (250 km) northwest of Toronto to Milton, Ontario, which is about 35 miles (60 km) southwest of Toronto.

Bruce Power was continuing to run the reactor even though it is not connected to the grid, a spokesman at Bruce said.

He could not say when the reactor would be able to reattach to the grid, noting it depended on the return of the line.

Hydro One is investigating the cause of the line failure, a spokeswoman for the province owned transmission and distribution company said.

She could not say when the line would return to service.

There are four 750 MW units at Bruce: 1 to 4, at the A station, which entered service in 1977-1979, and three 822 MW units, 5 to 7, and one 795 MW unit, 8, at the B station, which entered service in 1984-1987.

All of the other operating units were available for service.

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 Power LP is owned by uranium miner Cameco Corp (CCO.TO) (31.6 percent), energy company TransCanada Corp (TRP.TO) (31.6 percent), BPC Generation Infrastructure Trust, an investment entity owned by Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (31.6 percent), the Power Workers’ Union (4 percent) and the Society of Energy Professionals (1.2 percent).