In a dramatic comeback, Bruce Power has revitalized and returned to service all eight of its nuclear generating units, becoming the largest operating nuclear station in the world.
Bruce Power’s Restart Project was officially completed on Oct. 31 with Unit 2 being declared commercially operational two weeks after it first generated electricity and just nine days after Unit 1 reached its similar goal.
“Bruce Power should be congratulated on achieving this important milestone,” said Ontario Minister of Energy Chris Bentley. “(Achieving) 6,300 megawatts from the Bruce Power site is part of Ontario’s Long-Term Energy Plan to modernize our electricity system for the long-term and to phase out coal by the end of 2014.”
After more than 10 years of work on the site revitalization project and $7 billion in private investment, Bruce Power has more than doubled its production. From 20 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2002, output has grown to an expected 45 TWh in 2012, and as work continues on the station, annual production is expected to exceed 50 TWh by 2015. Total power generation in Ontario is about 160 TWh per year, of which Bruce Power now provides more than 25 per cent.
There is a broader context to the Bruce Power story. In 2012, the company completed a wide-ranging investment program that upgraded many aspects of the Bruce A station, going well beyond returning Units 1 and 2 to operation. The lifespan of Unit 3 was extended into the next decade as a result of a six-month planned maintenance outage – a procedure that used an innovative technique called ‘West Shift’ to return fuel channels to their original position after years of being elongated by high temperatures, pressure and radiation. Unit 4 is currently in the final stages of its own life-extending outage, and is expected to be back in service in the near future.
As a result of the company’s ongoing revitalization program, the site has achieved its full operating potential for the first time in 20 years, doubling the number of operating units from four to eight since Bruce Power took over the site in 2001. The initiative has transformed the Bruce Power workforce through new hiring and training programs, extended the life of operating units through innovation, positioned the entire project for long-term stability, and contributed significantly to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario.
The scale of Bruce Power’s investment in publicly-owned assets is an excellent example of how private companies can work together with public entities to achieve common goals, according to Mark Romoff, President and CEO of the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnership. “The turnaround story of the Bruce Power site is a good example of an effective public-private partnership, and this latest milestone is tangible evidence of its success,” Romoff said. “The revitalization of the Bruce Power site will deliver private investment in critical public infrastructure, while delivering low-cost, clean electricity to the people of Ontario.”
In many respects, the success of Bruce Power’s revitalization project marks a turning point for the entire Canadian nuclear power industry. The company has demonstrated that CANDU nuclear refurbishments are feasible and potentially attractive investments going forward, said Duncan Hawthorne, the company’s president and CEO.
“By building on the experience we have gained over the last 11 years with renewing our infrastructure, we are in a strong position to progress with a comprehensive revitalization program to continue to invest in our units, while ensuring we continue to provide the province with reliable, low-cost electricity to continue to stabilize both supply and electricity rates,” Hawthorne said.
For several years, the industry has been working on rehabilitating not just its production facilities but its management practices and its image with the public, as outlined in an August 2012 special feature titled "Throwing open the window: Ontario's nuclear industry looks to the future" (IPPSO FACTO, August 2012).
Kim Warren, the COO of the IESO, believes the Bruce Power team have rung up some notable achievements during the restart process. “The returned units are enormous contributions to the energy and resource picture in Ontario, producing quality jobs and reliable energy for the province.” He also notes that the additional generation has a stabilizing effect on the grid. The Bruce B units now incorporate equipment that allows the operator to adjust output by up to 300 MW per unit, in response to signals from the IESO. "They provide flexibility to respond to unforeseen circumstances," Warren says. In fact, in the near future all the Bruce nuclear units will have this kind of maneuvering capability.
Technical innovation
In Bruce Power’s first 11 years of operation, innovation has been a central component to the company’s success. This has been borne out not only through the first-of-a-kind refurbishments with Units 1 and 2, but also through some of the techniques applied to the life extension and improved operations of Units 3 through 8. Following are some of the innovative programs that have taken place over the past decade:
• Restart of Units 3 and 4: Following one of the most comprehensive assessments ever done on a CANDU station, Bruce Power proceeded with and completed the return to service of Units 3 and 4. At the height of activities, more than 1,100 people worked on the project, consuming five million hours of work, and installing nearly 60 kilometres of new cable, while seeing more than 200,000 electrical connections being made. In addition, security was significantly enhanced following the events of September 11, 2001.
• Steam generator replacements: Shipped from Alberta’s oil sands, a giant crane was used to remove and replace, with exact precision, 16, 100-tonne, 12-metre high steam generators through the roof of Bruce A. Exact measurements were carried out using sophisticated laser technology, and, in preparation for the project, crews cleared kilometres of wires, pipes and other interferences.
• Robotic tooling for the retube program: A retube control centre was established as a base to operate remote-controlled tooling to remove radioactive fuel channels on Units 1 and 2. The channels were cut into small pieces of waste to be safely managed.
• Increasing the output from Bruce B: Through a process known as ‘core re-ordering,’ which involves changing the direction in which fuel is inserted into the reactor core, all Bruce B units have been increased from 90 to 93 per cent reactor power. Combining all four Bruce B units, this is a 100 megawatt increase in generation, enough electricity to power 100,000 Ontario homes.
• West Shift program: West Shift, which began in late-2011 as part of a six-month Unit 3 maintenance outage, allowed crews to move fuel channels back into their original position after they were elongated by years of high temperatures, radiation and pressure. Each channel was cut free from the reactor and welded into place to extend the life of the reactor. This program extended the life of Unit 3 through the end of the decade.
Contribution to coal phase-out
The Bruce Power revitalization program is an essential element to Ontario’s plan to phase out coal generation. When the former Ontario Hydro shut down Bruce A in the 1990s, generation from the Bruce site went from around 25 per cent of the province’s electricity to 15. At the same time, coal-fired generation rose from 12 to 29 per cent, increasing greenhouse gas emissions in the province. Since Bruce Power began its revitalization program, coal output has dropped by nearly 90 per cent annually, while Bruce Power has doubled its number of operational units. A revitalized eight-unit Bruce Power site will provide 70 per cent of the energy needed to phase out coal in Ontario.
Summer smog days in the Greater Toronto Area have also fallen from 48 in 2005 to 12 in 2011, as the province benefits from Bruce Power’s revitalization program. See the chart at right, tracking Bruce Power output compared with output from coal fired units in Ontario. (Click here to see the chart at larger scale. )
With the return to service of Units 1 and 2, Bruce Power will remain a key player in both reducing and staying off coal. In total, the return to service is one of the largest greenhouse gas reduction initiatives in North America.
Sector-leading employment practices
In 2012, Bruce Power was recognized as one of Canada’s Top Employers for Young People, a competition organized by the editors of Canada’s Top 100 Employers, Mediacorp Canada Inc.
The award recognizes employers that offer the nation’s best benefits for younger workers, but also takes into account programs to attract and retain younger workers. Bruce Power’s efforts as host of one of eight Canadian chapters of the international Young Generation in Nuclear organization, which allows young professionals to network across the industry, was one of the reasons cited in the company’s favour. Other reasons for Bruce Power’s selection include:
• The company’s co-op, summer and internship students manage ‘Youth Power,’ an in-house initiative that works to enhance student social life in Bruce County and increase members’ knowledge of the company through lunch-and-learns, nuclear station tours and networking opportunities.
• The Development Student Program, which provides training and experience to full-time college and university students for a period of four to eight months. In addition, Bruce Power offers a high school co-op program, which is a full semester, four-credit program that prepares high school students for studies or apprenticeships.
The role of private investment
Over the past 11 years, Bruce Power’s owners have been the largest private investor in Ontario’s electricity infrastructure. The fact that the project has now proven successful will likely prompt a range of discussion on Bay Street and in other financial centres. Of course, it can only help burnish Ontario’s image as a destination for international capital. At the same time, in assessing the reasons for the company’s success, attention will inevitably be paid to the impact of private capital. Can the dramatic change in corporate culture and physical output be explained in part, not just by a new management team, but by the introduction of large amounts of private equity in Bruce Power? Following the lease in 2001 and restructuring of financial terms with the OPA a few years later, the province transferred a large portion of its financial guarantees – and risk – to the private sector. In the process a great deal of private capital has been mobilized and placed at risk. Did this enhance financial discipline or cause management to pay particularly careful attention to the achievement of performance targets? The extent to which the use of private equity has contributed to performance is no doubt a subject of signficant interest across the power sector.
Formed in 2001, Bruce Power is a Canadian-owned partnership of TransCanada Corporation, Cameco Corporation, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), the Power Workers’ Union and The Society of Energy Professionals. The company employs approximately 4,000 people. The site is leased from the Province of Ontario under a long-term arrangement where all of the assets remain publicly owned, while the company makes annual rent payments and funds the cost of waste management and eventual decommissioning of the facilities.
There is little doubt that the Bruce station is back, and that Bruce Power will be a formidable player in the Ontario power market for a long time to come.