Bruce Power said the refurbished unit is scheduled to come back online in 2026.
The major component replacement project will see Units 3 to 8 refurbished, allowing the eight-unit site to continue to contribute to Ontario’s and Canada’s clean-energy goals and produce cancer-fighting medical isotopes until 2064.
The eight pressurised heavy-water Candu reactor units at the Bruce site began commercial operation between September 1977 and May 1987.
The major refurbishment process is expected to extend the lifetime of the Bruce station well into the early 2060s.
Bruce Power’s life extension programme started in January 2016 and will continue until 2053.
Unit 6, the first reactor to be refurbished as part of the site’s life extension programme, is on track to be returned to service later this year with all new reactor components.
In a separate project, Units 1 and 2 were refurbished and brought back online in 2012 and have since set new operational performance milestones.
Major component replacement outages consist of reactor shutdown and defuelling, reactor preparation, reactor retube and feeder replacement, and commissioning.
The major component replacement project and life extension programme is one of Canada’s largest energy infrastructure projects.
The Bruce station produces 6,550 MW of peak energy and that output will increase to more than 7,000 MW in the 2030s, following the completion of the MCR programme in 2033 and other life extension projects.
Bruce Power said nuclear power provides 60% of Ontario’s clean energy.
