Bruce Power's Vacuum Building Outage (VBO) started Wednesday with all four of Bruce B’s operating units removed from service.
The VBO represents an investment of $190 million over less than three weeks to ensure maintenance and inspection work can be carried out safely and successfully by Bruce Power, its partners, and skilled tradespeople.
Bruce Power says it is working in close collaboration and co-ordination with the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and Hydro One.
Vacuum buildings are a unique safety system in multi-unit CANDU generating stations, providing an additional protective barrier to the release of radioactivity to the environment. However, all four operating units must be shut down approximately once every decade to allow for inspections and maintenance to the vacuum building, the culmination of extensive planning, resourcing and co-ordination.
Bruce Power works closely with the IESO to ensure the timing of these outages are scheduled during periods of the year when power demand is expected to be low – usually the spring or fall. Bruce B will be back up and running for the peak summer usage period.
“Bringing all of the station’s operating units off-line at once is a large undertaking and our team has been planning for years to ensure it is completed safely,” said Adrian London, Vice-President, Bruce B. “The Vacuum Building Outage removes about 15 per cent of the capacity available to the Independent Electricity System Operator grid, so the people of Ontario are counting on us to bring our units back online successfully to continue to provide clean, reliable power.”