Canada Bruce Power Unit A2 reactor cleared to Restart

Canadian regulators have cleared Unit 2 of the Bruce A nuclear power plant in Ontario to restart after a nearly two-decade-long slumber.

Bruce Power said Friday it can complete final safety checks and prepare to synchronize the reactor, which has been out of service since 1995, to Ontario’s electrical grid.

“A project of this magnitude has never been done before on a CANDU reactor and that cannot be overlooked,” said Bruce Power CEO Duncan Hawthorne in a release.

“We have learned many lessons from our work on Unit 2 and have implemented them on Unit 1 which is following very closely behind Unit 2 and should achieve a similar milestone in a few short months.

Work on Unit 1 of Bruce A is still underway, and operations on that reactor should restart during the third quarter of 2012.

Bruce Power, on the shores of Lake Huron in Ontario, consists of two generating stations: Bruce A and Bruce B. Together they house eight reactors, six of which have been operational for the past several years.

Bruce A units are rated at 750MW of electricity net, and 805MW gross.

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