Canada’s Darlington nuclear power plant refurbishment hits delay

• 4 years ago (2019-08-20)
• David Flin

North America 996 Nuclear 639

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Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has announced that completion of the refurbishment of Darlington nuclear power plant’s Unit 2 will take longer than expected. Ken Hartwick, President and CEO of OPG, said: “We expect Unit 2 will return to service in the second quarter of 2020, rather than the first quarter as previously anticipated, as a result of slower than expected installation of lower feeders. This revised schedule also reflects our unwavering commitment to safety as the No. 1 priority in everything we do. We continue to expect the project overall to be executed on time and on budget.”

OPG began the first steps in the refurbishment of its four reactors at Darlington in October 2016, beginning with Unit 2. In the original schedule, work to install new tubes into the reactor was to be completed and loading fuel back into the reactor was to begin this summer.

The installation of fuel channel assemblies and upper and middle feeders on Unit 2 has been completed. Installation of the lower feeders is taking longer than expected. The lower feeder installation series is in progress, and is now expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Neal Kelly, spokesperson for OPG, said: “It’s piping work, and it just took longer than anticipated to complete these steps. There was a fabrication delay, which had a cascading impact.”