Presenting Atucha III

The Bruce nuclear power plant. Photo: Bruce Power

Speaking last week at a virtual event of the Empire Club of Canada, Bruce Power president and chief executive officer Mike Rencheck announced “NZ-2050”—the company’s strategy for helping Canada achieve its stated goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Canada’s only private sector nuclear generator, Bruce Power operates the Bruce Nuclear Generation Station, located in Kincardine, Ontario. The plant houses eight units, all CANDU pressurized heavy-water reactors, with a total output of 6,288 MWe.

Brouillette

Popescu

U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Romania’s Minister of Economy, Energy, and Business Development Virgil Popescu initialed a draft intergovernmental agreement on October 9 to cooperate on the construction of two additional reactors at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant, as well as the refurbishment of Unit 1.

According to a Department of Energy news release, the agreement, once formally executed, will “lay the foundation” for Romania to “utilize U.S. expertise and technology.” The deal marks a major change in Romania’s plans for its sole nuclear plant, as up until early this year the source for that expertise and technology was expected to be China.

Ontario’s Darlington nuclear power plant. Photo: OPG

The latest phase of the Darlington nuclear power plant’s refurbishment project began last week with the start of the defueling of Unit 3, according to Ontario Power Generation (OPG). Originally scheduled to begin in May this year, Unit 3’s refurbishment was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Located in Clarington, Ontario, Canada, the Darlington plant houses four 878-MWe CANDU pressurized heavy-water reactors, all of which entered commercial operation in the early 1990s. The 10-year refurbishment project—which was 10 years in the planning—commenced in earnest in October 2016, when Unit 2 was taken off line (NN, Dec. 2016, pg. 45). The refurbished Unit 2 was returned to service in early June, and in late July Unit 3 was shut down and disconnected from the grid in preparation for its refurbishment.

China is on track to overtake the United States in nuclear power capacity by 2026, according to GlobalData, a U.K.-based research and analytics company.

More than 160 GW of nuclear capacity will likely be added globally between 2020 and 2030, some 66 percent of which is anticipated to take place in China, India, and Russia, the company reported on September 9. China alone is set to account for more than 50 percent (83 GW) of the new capacity, followed by India with 8.9 percent (14.5 GW) and Russia with 6.4 percent (10.5 GW). GlobalData also projects that during the same period, more than 76 GW of nuclear capacity will be retired.

A fish-eye view of the refurbished Darlington-2. Photo: Ontario Power Generation

Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) massive project to refurbish all of its Darlington nuclear power plant reactors has reached its first major milestone with the successful completion of Unit 2’s refurbishment and reconnection to Ontario’s electricity grid, the utility stated in a June 4 media release.

The Darlington plant, located in Clarington, Ontario, Canada, houses four 878-MWe PHWR CANDU reactors, all of which entered commercial operation in the early 1990s. The 10-year refurbishment project, which also was 10 years in the planning, began in earnest in October 2016, when Unit 2 was taken off line (NN, Dec. 2016, pg. 45).

According to a statement from the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), a key hot performance test was conducted on Unit 5 of the Fuqing nuclear power plant in Fuzhou, in East China’s Fujian Province, on March 2. The CNNC said it is the world’s first nuclear power project using Hualong One technology, also known as HPR 1000, a third-­generation reactor design developed by China. A total of five nuclear power units adopting HPR 1000 technology are under construction by CNNC in China and other countries.