Candu refurbishment contract for Bruce

19 June 2018


Canada’s Bruce Power has awarded the Shoreline Power Group consortium a CAD475m ($361m) contract for the retubing unit 6 at the Bruce nuclear plant in Ontario. The work is part of Bruce's Major Component Replacement (MCR) project.
 
Shoreline Power Group - a consortium of Aecon, AECOM and SNC-Lavalin - has also signed a preferred supplier agreement under which means it could win similar contracts for five more Bruce units over the next 16 years, but this will depend on demonstrated success at unit 6.

The contract includes planning and carrying out the removal and replacement of calandria tubes, pressure tubes and feeders for Bruce 6.  Shoreline will also be responsible for managing the complex robotic tooling required for the work, along with full training of the workforce. The retubing is scheduled to begin in 2020 for completion in the third quarter of 2022.

MCRs are scheduled for Bruce units 3-8 as part of the Bruce Power Life Extension Programme, which will enable the Bruce A and B plants to operate until 2064. Bruce A 1&2 have already been refurbished. 

Canadian construction and infrastructure company Aecon and US-based engineering company AECOM are already involved in the removal and replacement of Bruce 6's eight steam generators through a joint venture with Areva NP under a CAD150m contract. The replacement steam generators are being manufactured by BWXT Canada Ltd, under a 2016 contract worth CAD100m. Bruce Power in October 2016 signed a framework agreement with SNC-Lavalin in preparation for the refurbishment programme. 

Mike Harris, who was premier of Ontario at the time of Bruce Power's formation as a public-private partnership in 2001, noted that without the work Bruce Power has undertaken since 2001 all the reactors would now be  shut down. "I'm pleased that, through the public-private partnership between the province and Bruce Power, we have a very different future today. All eight units are generating low-cost power for families and business, and this private-sector investment programme will allow the company to do this for many decades to come."

Progress at Darlington

A refurbishment is also underway at Canada’s Darlington nuclear plant. Ontario Power Generation announced on 11 June that work has begun to reassemble Darlington 2, an 878MWe Candu reactor – the first of Darlington's four reactors to undergo a 30-year life extension. The CAD12.8bn project to refurbish Darlington's reactors is scheduled for completion in 2026.

Work began in 2016 when unit 2 was shut down and isolated from the operating station, after which it was defuelled. The reactor was then completely disassembled, with the last of the unit's 480 calandria tubes removed on 3 May.

Reassembly began with inspections of the calandria vessel - the tank which holds the reactor's core of nuclear fuel as well as the heavy water moderator - using a remotely controlled camera to allow viewing of key areas such as high-stress welds, reactivity mechanisms and moderator nozzles to assess their integrity. These features of the calandria vessel can only be inspected when the fuel channels and other components have been removed. Refurbishment of Darlington 3 is scheduled to begin after completion of work on unit 2 and will incorporate lessons learned. 

Currently, ten Candu units in Canada are to be refurbished between 2016 and 2033 – four at Darlington and six at Bruce. The Pickering nuclear plant will continue to operate until 2024 to provide baseload electricity during the Darlington and Bruce refurbishments.


Photo: The Shoreline Power Group signed a historic Major Component Replacement contract with Bruce Power, in mid-June. Photo shows (l-r) Lisa Thompson, MPP Huron-Bruce; Art Lembo, AECOM; Sandy Taylor, SNC-Lavalin; Mike Rencheck, Bruce Power; John Beck, Aecon; Mike Harris, former Premier and guest speaker; and Bill Walker, MPP Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound (Credit: Bruce Power)



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