Canada

As of 31 December 2022
 

Nineteen reactors operate at four plants in southeast Canada, 18 of which are in Ontario and one in New Brunswick.

The Bruce nuclear power plant comprises eight units commissioned between 1977 and 1987. In 2015 it was decided that six of the units would be refurbished to extend their operation to 2064.

In May 2023 the first refurbished Bruce unit, unit 6, reached the major milestone of ‘substantial completion’, with refuelling work under way. In March 2023 the refurbishment of unit 3 began, with the reactor scheduled to come back online in 2026.

In 2015 Ontario Power Generation (OPG) decided on a full refurbishment programme for the Darlington plant to enable 30-year lifetime extensions for the four reactors. Unit 2 was taken offline in October 2016 and restarted in June 2020. Unit 3 was taken offline for refurbishment in September 2020, followed by unit 1 in February 2022. It is anticipated that unit 3 will resume operation by late 2023. Refurbishment of unit 4 is planned to commence in July 2023, with work on all four units on track for completion by 2026.

In January 2023 OPG, GE Hitachi, SNC-Lavalin and Aecon announced a six-year alliance to develop, engineer and construct a BWRX-300 at Darlington.

Figure Ca1. Annual electricity output (TWh) and age of reactors (years) at time of generation

Figure Ca2. Average capacity factor of reactors in Canada

Figure Ca3. Emissions avoidance through use of nuclear generation in Canada

WNN Links

Second refurbished Darlington reactor back online: World Nuclear News - 19 July 2023
Second Bruce unit begins refurbishment outage: World Nuclear News - 3 March 2023