Bruce Power celebrates a successful 2016

Bruce Power is celebrating another successful year of producing 30 per cent of Ontario’s electricity at 30 per cent less than the residential price of power.

The year’s achievements literally began Jan. 1, when the company’s long-term agreement with the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) – signed Dec. 3, 2015 – officially took effect, signalling the start of Bruce Power’s Life-Extension Program, which will invest billions into the site, allowing it to operate until 2064.

The Life-Extension Program, which is currently on time and on budget, includes the Asset Management maintenance program, which will add another 30 years of life to Units 3-8. This will allow the units to run until their scheduled Major Component Replacement project, the first of which will begin on Unit 6 in 2020.

Other highlights of 2016 include:
 

• Bruce Power generated 30 per cent of Ontario’s electricity at 30 per cent less than the average residential price of power. Bruce Power nuclear remains the second lowest-cost form of electricity in Ontario, second only to hydroelectric power. Bruce Power is paid 6.6 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh) while the average residential price is about 11 cents.
• Bruce A successfully completed a Station Containment Outage (SCO) in the second quarter, which saw all four units removed from service for an extended period to ensure the extensive layers of safety systems are in full working order. The SCO maintenance program, which is mandated under the licence with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), was completed on time and on budget.
• Bruce Power has received its best-ever report card from the CNSC, the country’s independent regulator of nuclear facilities. Both Bruce A and B received an overall ‘Fully Satisfactory’ mark for the CNSC’s Integrated Plant Ratings, which the regulator has compared to an ‘A+’ in past media reports. Both stations were also deemed Fully Satisfactory for Operating Performance, Conventional Health and Safety, Waste Management and Security. The other 10 areas rated by the CNSC were deemed ‘Satisfactory,’ which is equivalent to an ‘A.’
• Unit 1 set a new post-refurbishment record run in April as it reached 151 days of consecutive operation. Unit 7 celebrated a record run of 487 days in September, before it was removed from service for a planned maintenance outage.
• Bruce Power expanded its agreement with Nordion to supply Cobalt-60 for the sterilization of single-use medical devices, to now include ‘High Specific Activity’ Cobalt, which is used in cancer treatments across the globe. This agreement will help solidify the world’s supply of HSA Cobalt once the National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, reaches its end-of-life in 2018. Cobalt-60 was also used to combat the Zika Virus in impacted countries in 2016.
• Bruce Power provided long-term economic boosts to suppliers at BWXT Technologies Inc., ATS Automation and Laker Energy, among others, by signing long-term agreements that will inject hundreds of millions into Ontario’s economy annually and create and sustain thousands of jobs over the next 50 years.
• About 150 local Aboriginal people were able to learn about careers in Ontario’s electricity sector at Bruce Power’s inaugural Aboriginal Employment and Business Forum held in Owen Sound in April.
• Bruce Power and the County of Bruce teamed up to establish a new regional economic development and innovation initiative. The goal is to leverage economic opportunities for local communities during the Life-Extension Program.
• Bruce Power has partnered with four Ontario colleges on six diploma programs, which will help to ensure a steady flow of qualified candidates for the company’s workforce. Schools include Lambton, St. Clair, Georgian and Algonquin Colleges.
• Bruce Power partnered with Plug ‘n Drive and Pollution Probe, as well as local municipalities, conservation and educational institutions to install eight Electric Vehicle charging stations in the region. Stations are located in Kincardine, Port Elgin, Saugeen First Nation, Southampton, Walkerton and Wroxeter, as well as at the University of Waterloo and Humber College, in downtown Toronto.
• More than 500 people from more than 30 municipal, provincial and federal agencies, including Bruce Power, collaborated on ‘Exercise Huron Resolve,’ a five-day, full-scale emergency situation. Emergency response organizations were tested in a wide range of scenarios.
• Bruce Power announced that it will provide $5-million in funding to the Northern Ontario School of Medicine to conduct health research in Northern Ontario, specifically in relation to radiation and the environment.
• For the fifth consecutive year, Bruce Power was named one of Canada’s Top Employers for Young People.
• Bruce Power’s Community Investment and Sponsorship Program again donated nearly $1.4-million to local projects, organizations and events.
• Bruce Power’s first president and chief executive officer, Duncan Hawthorne, announced his retirement in February. In August, his duties were taken on by the new president and chief executive officer, Mike Rencheck.
• The provincial government released the 2014 Air Quality Report, which showed there were no smog advisories that year, which directly corresponds to the shutdown of Ontario’s coal-fired electricity plants. Bruce Power played a major role in this clean-air initiative by providing 70 per cent of the carbon-free energy the province needed to shutter these plants through the return-to-service of Bruce A’s four units over the past 12 years.
• Bruce Power launched a social media awareness campaign during Mental Health Awareness Week. Thousands of people used social media to #BreakTheSilence, and Bruce Power donated $80,000 to local mental health initiatives.
• Bruce Power and its employees raised more than $70,000 for Red Cross relief efforts during this past spring’s devastating forest fires in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
• Due to high demand, Bruce Power expanded its bus tour program to two tours per day from Monday to Saturday throughout July and August, excluding holidays, and ending Sept. 2. This past summer, 3,320 people toured the Bruce Power site.