Project is part of work on six reactors at facility
A major refurbishment project has started at Canada’s Bruce-4 nuclear power unit in Ontario, owner and operator Bruce Power said.
The major component replacement (MCR) programme at Bruce-4, an 807-MW Candu design, is expected to take three years to complete and is the company’s third large-scale refurbishment.
It follows the successful completion of a similar project at Unit 6 and ongoing work on Unit 3, which began in 2023.
Overlapping MCR activities will run until 2033. The efforts are part of Bruce Power’s CAD13 billion ($9.1bn, €8.7bn) refurbishment project.
The company aims to refurbish six of the nuclear stations’ reactors – Units 3 through 8 – to boost generating capacity from 6,550 MW to more than 7,000 MW in the 2030s.
Units 5, 7 and 8 are slated for refurbishment over the next 10 years. Two units at the site, Units 1 and 2, are not part of the project.
In September 2023 Unit 6 at Bruce returned to commercial operation following completion of its MCR project.
The eight Candu heavy water reactor units at the Bruce site began commercial operation between September 1977 and May 1987
