Bruce Power investing $116-million into Unit 8 planned maintenance, inspection program

A $116-million planned maintenance and inspection program is under way on Unit 8 at the Bruce B nuclear generating station, part of the Bruce Nuclear site, operated by Bruce Power, in the Municipality of Kincardine.

 

The 822-megawatt unit was removed from service Jan. 15 after more than 100 consecutive days of producing clean, low-cost and reliable electricity for Ontario businesses and families. The unit will return to service in the second quarter of 2016.

 

“There are roughly 24,000 tasks built into a comprehensive plan which will see maintenance performed on almost every system throughout the entire unit,” said Pierre Pilon, senior vice president for Bruce B. “The program will set Unit 8 up for safe, reliable performance through another strong operational cycle.”
 

While Unit 8 is shut down, workers will also remove Cobalt-60 which will eventually be used to sterilize disposable medical supplies. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates more than 640,000 major surgeries are performed each day around the world. Sterilized disposable medical devices are used in virtually all of these procedures. Cobalt-60 is supplied to more than 200 gamma irradiators in 55 countries that sterilize surgical gloves, gowns, masks, syringes, sutures, catheters, pharmaceuticals, implants and tissue, as well as several products used in the food and consumer products industries.
 

For more information, visit www.cleannuclearpowersafehospitals.com.
 

The Unit 8 outage is the first planned maintenance and inspection program of 2016 and comes on the heels of a stellar production year for Bruce A and Bruce B which set records for electricity output in 2015, all while providing the province with 2,400 megawatts of flexible generation, reducing output as demand across Ontario fluctuates. Bruce Power completed an extensive planned maintenance outage program in 2015, investing about $400-million worth of private funding into its publicly-owned assets.
 

“By investing in regular maintenance, we are ensuring the units will operate with a high degree of reliability into the future," said Pilon,"setting the stage for refurbishment which will get under way with Unit 6 in 2020.”