OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
As I touched-on in my MCR vs refurb thread:
Bruce Power is working on uprating their units.
And how.
Unit 1 just came back from a maintenance break. This unit was already refurbished and returned to service in 2012, but it and its sister refurb'd unit, Unit 2, have lagged in output compared to their siblings, 3 and 4, being rated at 779 instead of 784, and 3 and 4 haven't run at 784 in ages, both of them have been well above 800MW for a very long time now.
Unit 1 came back at 816 rated, but then that was reduced to 789, while the unit was bouncing around above 800. It hit 810 yesterday and they've bumped rated capacity back up again, it is now 805. I fully expect to see it hit the low 820's at some point while still on the conventional fuel bundles.
As I noted in the other thread, all of the Bruce units are at 95%, they run a 5% derate due to fuel channel flow being unidirectional, not bidirectional like Pickering and Darlington. They are in the process of developing new fuel bundles with Cameco that may allow them to bump to 100% FP, which will be a game changer for the site and facilitate their 7,000MWe site output goal.
So, using some crude math (a 5% thermal derate does not directly translate into a 5% electrical derate, but that's what we are going to do for the sake of this discussion), if Bruce Power intends on a 870MWe rating for the A units, that puts them at 827MWe (roughly) at a 5% derate. So A1 has about 17MW to go to hit target. Bruce B5 has been into the 830's several times now, but the site goal for the B units is at least 880, so it needs to be ~836MWe to be on-target, not far off.
The units at Bruce have the highest thermal capacity of any CANDU ever produced at 2,832MWth, which put them above the 878MWe units (2,776MWth) at Darlington. They have some headroom, and capitalizing on that is the name of the game if they are to achieve the aforementioned 7,000MWe site output target.
It is fascinating watching this unfold in real-time; watching these units come back from routine maintenance breaks and produce significantly more power. One of the items addressed on Unit 1 was stator and rotor rewind for example, something pretty basic, but it made a big difference. Bruce 1 picked up 37MW according to the documentation I'm looking at, which means it should be able to hit ~825MWe with the derate factored in.
Yes, this unit was originally 750MWe:
The old girl has legs and she continues to impress.
MCR vs Refurbishment, what gives?
As I've noted in a few previous threads, Ontario is in the process of refurbishing its nuclear fleet (except for Pickering, but we hope to change that) which is something that needs to be done about halfway through the expected life of a CANDU unit. A refurbishment can be very broad or very...
bobistheoilguy.com
Bruce Power is working on uprating their units.
And how.
Unit 1 just came back from a maintenance break. This unit was already refurbished and returned to service in 2012, but it and its sister refurb'd unit, Unit 2, have lagged in output compared to their siblings, 3 and 4, being rated at 779 instead of 784, and 3 and 4 haven't run at 784 in ages, both of them have been well above 800MW for a very long time now.
Unit 1 came back at 816 rated, but then that was reduced to 789, while the unit was bouncing around above 800. It hit 810 yesterday and they've bumped rated capacity back up again, it is now 805. I fully expect to see it hit the low 820's at some point while still on the conventional fuel bundles.
As I noted in the other thread, all of the Bruce units are at 95%, they run a 5% derate due to fuel channel flow being unidirectional, not bidirectional like Pickering and Darlington. They are in the process of developing new fuel bundles with Cameco that may allow them to bump to 100% FP, which will be a game changer for the site and facilitate their 7,000MWe site output goal.
So, using some crude math (a 5% thermal derate does not directly translate into a 5% electrical derate, but that's what we are going to do for the sake of this discussion), if Bruce Power intends on a 870MWe rating for the A units, that puts them at 827MWe (roughly) at a 5% derate. So A1 has about 17MW to go to hit target. Bruce B5 has been into the 830's several times now, but the site goal for the B units is at least 880, so it needs to be ~836MWe to be on-target, not far off.
The units at Bruce have the highest thermal capacity of any CANDU ever produced at 2,832MWth, which put them above the 878MWe units (2,776MWth) at Darlington. They have some headroom, and capitalizing on that is the name of the game if they are to achieve the aforementioned 7,000MWe site output target.
It is fascinating watching this unfold in real-time; watching these units come back from routine maintenance breaks and produce significantly more power. One of the items addressed on Unit 1 was stator and rotor rewind for example, something pretty basic, but it made a big difference. Bruce 1 picked up 37MW according to the documentation I'm looking at, which means it should be able to hit ~825MWe with the derate factored in.
Yes, this unit was originally 750MWe:
The old girl has legs and she continues to impress.