Ontario Nuclear update - World record

[OVERKILL]

As of today, OPG Darlington Unit 1 has set the record for the longest uninterrupted run in history for a nuclear unit at 963 days (and counting). That means this unit has produced 20.3TWh since its last outage. For perspective, South Australia uses ~12.2TWh/year.

The last time an Ontario CANDU set the record was in 1994 when Pickering Unit 7 ran 894 days, a record that stood for 15 years. The most recent unit to hold the title was a CANDU-derivative in India.

The next record for Darlington Unit 1 to break would be the all-time record for any thermal generating unit which is held by Unit 4 at Stanwell power station in Australia at 1,073 days.

 

[Danno]

Impressive !

 

[BISCUT]

Impressive indeed. I'm guessing non-government management? I say that because when NYS Power Authority owned IPEC in Buchannan NY the output highs and lows were bottom to top. Soon after Entergy managed the plant the output was much more linear and stable.

 

[OVERKILL]

Impressive indeed. I'm guessing non-government management? I say that because when NYS Power Authority owned IPEC in Buchannan NY the output highs and lows were bottom to top. Soon after Entergy managed the plant the output was much more linear and stable.

Built by the former (public) Ontario Hydro and operated by Ontario Power Generation, also owned by the province of Ontario (public). Ontario Hydro was split up in the late 90's but only 50% of the distribution arm (Hydro ONE) has been allowed to go private, all the other components of it are still owned and operated by the province.

Bruce, our largest nuclear facility is privately operated. Probably the biggest difference is that it is on a fixed-rate compensation scheme and that because they are paid per kWh, they are actively pursuing significant uprates as part of their life extension and refurbishment program whereas OPG, since it doesn't make revenue from rates, isn't. Its first unit to be refurbished, Unit 2, which came back online earlier this year, is at the same power output as it was when it went down, despite receiving a new turbine and new generator.

 

[BISCUT]

The politic behind these units is fascinating.

Not related to Canadian power plants but I've found Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham to be a good read. A lot of background history on the USSR system.

 

[OVERKILL]

The politic behind these units is fascinating.

Not related to Canadian power plants but I've found Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham to be a good read. A lot of background history on the USSR system.

Yes, things were really flying along until Chernobyl, here in Ontario we would have had 24 units. Ontario Hydro had incredible momentum going, we built Pickering A (4-units), Bruce A (4-units) then Pickering B (4-units) then Bruce B (4-units) then Darlington A (4-units) but Chernobyl happened in the middle of the construction of Darlington and everything just stopped. While that pause was placed, interest rates were INSANE and it cost billions of dollars in interest alone on a plant that wasn't even operational. By the time all was said and done, we had spent more on the 4 Darlington units than on all the other plants put together ($14.4 billion, in comparison the 8 Bruce units which cost $7.8 billion). This meant no B site.

OPG has however retained a site license and EA to build the B site, which they expect to do with SMR's in the not too distant figure. What the capacity of those units and thus that plant will be however is anyone's guess at this point.

 

[Kestas]

Good to hear this, Overkill. What is typically the limiting factor that interrupts a run?... or is it just from a miscellany of events?

 

[OVERKILL]

Good to hear this, Overkill. What is typically the limiting factor that interrupts a run?... or is it just from a miscellany of events?

Could be anything from a fuelling machine sticking on an end fitting to a planned generator or turbine maintenance outage. Obviously, if you are going to make a stab at a run like this you have to do all of that stuff well in advance but of course there are certain things you can't plan for, like the aforementioned fuelling machine issue. This unit entered commercial service on November 14th, 1992, two years after Unit 2. Interestingly this unit was not the next to be refurbished, Unit 3, which entered service a few months later in February of 1993, went down instead, so I assume from a materials perspective, this unit has aged well.

All that said, it's not uncommon for our units to run past 2 years. Multiple units at Bruce have run well into the 700's with regularity, same with Pickering. Maintenance outages are usually scheduled for the spring and fall when demand is the lowest so that we have full capacity, or as close to it as possible, available for the highest demand summer months.

 

[dareo]

Go nuclear! Its really the only way we can have enough energy for mass EV saturation. I would think in today's high technology era we can make nuclear downside free.

 

[OVERKILL]

I think it also important to note that this old girl is running on its original turbine and generator, making this run that much more impressive. Those components have been producing electricity for 28 years.

 

[UncleDave]

Amazing.

 

[OVERKILL]

A friend of mine who used to work as grid operator for Ontario Hydro and I were debating earlier whether they may try and run it until it is supposed to go down for refurb. I doubt it would be possible, we assume a maintenance outage is inevitable at some point, but if it did, that record would likely be untouchable. That's an additional two years from now at least.

 

[OVERKILL]

975 days now.

 

[bbhero]

975 days now.

Well 12 days more ain't that surprising...

 

[OVERKILL]

Bringing this back, OPG Darlington Unit 1 has now been operating uninterrupted for 1,000 days!