The Bruce Nuclear facility, located on Lake Huron in Tiverton Ontario, is the largest nuclear facility in North America in terms of output with a total output capacity of 6,224 MW (net) and 6,610 MW (gross).  It houses two nuclear generating stations – Bruce A and Bruce B – and each generating station has four CANDU reactors.  The facility was constructed in stages between 1970 and 1987 by the provincial Crown Corporation, Ontario Hydro. Bruce A Units were taken out of service between 1995 and 1998.  Bruce B Units continued in service.  In 2001, Bruce Power L.P., a partnership among Cameco Corporation, TransCanada Pipelines, BPC Generation Infrastructure Trust, and the two main unions on the Bruce site, The Power Workers’ Union and The Society of Energy Professionals, entered into a lease agreement with Ontario Power Generation relating to the facility.  Units 3 and 4 were restarted between 2003 and 2004 following an approximately $725 million investment.

On October 17, 2005 Ontario Power Authority signed an agreement with Bruce Power L.P. and Bruce Power A L.P., the Bruce Power Refurbishment Implementation Agreement (BPRIA), as directed by the Minister of Energy to restart Units 1 and 2, refurbish Unit 3 and replace the steam generators of Unit 4 at an estimated cost of $4.25 billion.

On August 29, 2007 the BPRIA was expanded to include the full refurbishment of Unit 4, rather than the more limited steam generator replacement program that was originally planned at an additional cost of $1 billion.

On April 17, 2008 Bruce Power L.P. announced an increase in forecasted costs by $350 to $650 million over the budget of $2.75 billion for Units 1 and 2 restart.  The total forecasted investment in the refurbishment and restart program of Unit A is now approximately in the range of $5.6 to $5.9 billion.

The restart and refurbishment of the 4 Units at Bruce A will bring online an additional 3,000 MW of new baseload capacity through 2036.  Work on Unit 1 and Unit 2 continues and these Units are scheduled to come online in 2010.

Planning work for Unit 3 and Unit 4 has commenced and the in-service dates of these Units have yet to be determined.

Project Progress (September 30, 2011)

• Fuel loading is a major milestone in the Restart Project and the last of 5,760 new fuel bundles was loaded into the Unit 2 reactor in July 
• New turbine rotors arrived at the site in August

 

Links:

Bruce Power
http://brucepower.com

Bruce Restart
http://brucepower.com/pagecontentU12.aspx?navuid=29

Bruce Power Refurbishment Implementation Agreement
http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/nuclear/bruce-power-refurbishment-implementation-agreement

Project Contacts:

Ontario Power Authority
 
Media and Public Relations
T. 416-969-6307 or
1-800-797-9604