As the cold weather approaches New Brunswick, the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station faced a setback in its return-to-service schedule earlier this week. N.B. Power reported that an attempt to reconnect Lepreau to the electrical grid after a prolonged maintenance outage was halted due to a equipment malfunction.
N.B. Power spokesperson Elizabeth Fraser explained in an email that the startup phase of the return to service encountered difficulties related to a bearing on the non-nuclear side of the station, which is currently being replaced. The station has been offline since mid-July for what was initially planned as a 140-day maintenance outage, scheduled to conclude before the onset of New Brunswick’s peak heating season.
Point Lepreau is a crucial generating plant for New Brunswick and is the most cost-efficient facility operated by N.B. Power when operational. Substituting its electricity output with other sources can cost between $1 million and $4 million per day, especially during cold weather periods. Environment and Climate Change Canada has forecasted temperatures to drop significantly in New Brunswick later this week, potentially increasing the financial impact of the delayed return of Lepreau.
To compensate for the lost power from Lepreau, N.B. Power’s Coleson Cove generating station resorted to burning oil to meet some of the demand. Despite the current issue hindering the reconnection of Lepreau to the grid, Fraser mentioned that the 20-week shutdown proceeded smoothly with 23,000 tasks completed successfully.
N.B. Power is currently undertaking a multi-year initiative to upgrade aging components at the nuclear plant in an effort to address persistent reliability issues. Earlier this year, Duncan Hawthorne, a nuclear industry veteran involved in reviewing N.B. Power’s future, criticized Lepreau as “the poorest-performing nuclear plant in North America.”
Since its refurbishment in 2012, Lepreau has been offline for over 1,240 days due to various planned and unforeseen maintenance challenges, surpassing the original downtime projection by 790 days after 14 years. Fraser did not provide a specific reopening date for Lepreau, only stating that it is expected to be back online “later in December.”