One of Bruce Power’s nuclear reactors has been removed from service to begin an outage for major component replacement.
The Tiverton company says Unit 3 was taken offline on Wednesday (March 1) and is scheduled to return to service in 2026.
Bruce Power’s life extension program includes an intensive major component replacement project, the company says on its website. The MCR project commenced in 2020, and focuses on the replacement of key reactor components in Units 3-8 — including steam generators, pressure tubes, calandria tubes and feeder tubes.
The life extension program will ensure operation at the Bruce Power site until 2064.
Unit 6, the first reactor to refurbished as part of the MCR project, is on track to be returned to service later this year with all new reactor components, the company says in a release.
Units 1 and 2 were refurbished and brought back online in 2012 and have since set new operational performance milestones.
“We’ve shown that refurbishing our units makes sense. We have the skilled workforce and supply chain knowledge right here in Ontario to carry out these projects successfully, while stimulating the economy at the same time. We are Made in Canada,” says Bruce Power President and CEO Mike Rencheck. “With the Unit 6 MCR nearing completion and Unit 3 now underway, we’re renewing our units with each subsequent MCR in order to continue providing the people, homes, businesses and hospitals of Ontario with carbon-free, clean, reliable electricity for many more decades.”
Bruce Power currently produces 6,550 megawatts (MW) of peak clean energy and that output will increase to more than 7,000 MW in the 2030s, following the completion of the MCR program in 2033 and other life-extension projects.