Back to the future

The slumbering giant awakes. In Ontario two reactors removed from service in the 90s have new owners and a new lease on life. Acres is participating in a $340-million venture to bring them back into production.

It is ten years since a nuclear generating station was built in North America. In Canada, eight of the country's 22 nuclear generating units are currently dormant, some since 1994. But nuclear still produces close to 12 percent of the nation's electricity, and that share will soon grow significantly as mothballed units at Pickering and Bruce generating stations are brought back into service.

Acres/Sargent & Lundy have formed a joint venture with E.S. Fox Ltd. (the ASLF joint venture) to perform contract work necessary to restart units 3 and 4 at Bruce A. Bruce Power decided to restart these two units after investing $40 million in a condition assessment.

The partnership brings together long experience of power generation engineering, procurement and construction in Ontario and North America; recent projects include the successful restart of seven nuclear generating units. Specific tasks at Bruce A include upgrading of backup power systems for operation during emergencies; improvements to vault ventilation; modifications to the reactor coolant system; improvements to the fire protection system; and upgrading of the feed water system.

Nuclear generation at the Bruce site began in 1959 with the construction of the Douglas Point Nuclear Generating Station, the first commercial nuclear plant in Canada. The Bruce facility, completed in 1987, took its place. Units 3 and 4 at Bruce A were first brought into service in 1978 and 1979, respectively. By the mid-90s weak markets for energy coincided with the need for operating improvements to all four Bruce A units. Ontario Hydro, owners at the time, chose to take Bruce A out of service until improved market conditions justified the cost of the necessary improvements.

Aiming for excellence

According to Bruce Power, those times are here. All four units at Bruce B are fully operational; net capacity is 3140 MW, sufficient to satisfy the industrial and residential needs of a city the size of Toronto. Over the past three years it has been among the fastest-improving nuclear reactors in North America, and in 2000 its Unit 5 was the top-performing Canadian reactor, achieving a capacity factor of 91.5 percent. Similar efficiencies are expected from the Bruce A units: the target is 92 percent.

Comprehensive inspections of Units 3 and 4, and a survey of the North American electricity market, proved that the restart is both technically and economically feasible.

Both units are expected to be back on-line by the summer of 2003. To achieve this, some 400 contract employees are working alongside an equal number of Bruce Power staff, including ASLF.

"We consider ourselves fortunate to have such experienced Canada-based contractors working on this exciting venture," says Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Bruce Power. "We intend to continue as we started, setting the highest standards of safety and efficiency for all six generating units at Bruce Power."

If you would like to find out more about this project or about our thermal or nuclear power capabilities, please contact Michael Jeans at:
Tel: (905) 469-3400, Fax: (905) 468-3404, email: mjeans@acres.com.

Visit us at www.acres.com. You can also visit the Bruce Power website at www.brucepower.com.