Third Bruce unit begins refurbishment
The start of the Major Component Replacement outage at Bruce 4 marks the middle of the project to renew six units as part of Bruce Power's plan to extend the operating life of the Ontario plant.
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Major Component Replacement - or MCR - involves removing and replacing key reactor components including steam generators, pressure tubes, calandria tubes and feeder tubes and adding 30-35 years to the reactor's operating life. The process has already been completed at Bruce 6, which returned to commercial service in September. Unit 3 is currently undergoing MCR. Units 5, 7 and 8 are also be refurbished, with units in overlapping MCR outages until 2033.
The CAD13 billion (USD9 billion) refurbishment project is Canada’s third largest infrastructure project, Ontario’s largest clean-energy infrastructure project and is being funded through private investment.
Unit 4's refurbishment outage will last three years, and successive refurbishments will build on the experiences and lessons learned from previous ones, such as the innovative use of robotic tooling used for the first time in the Bruce 3 MCR.
“Our Life-Extension Program and Major Component Replacement is more than a construction project,” Bruce Power President and CEO Eric Chassard said. “By completing each of the MCR outages safely, on plan, and to a high-quality standard, we are securing the future of the Bruce site, sustaining our communities, and powering Ontario through a time when electricity demand is growing rapidly.”
The MCR and Life-Extension projects will also increase the output of the entire Bruce plant from 6,550 MWe today to more than 7,000 MWe in the 2030s, with the programme and ongoing site operations creating and sustaining 22,000 direct and indirect jobs per year and contributing some CAD4 billion in annual economic benefits for communities in Ontario, according to Bruce Power.
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