Pickering Nuclear refurbishment on track as all four units prepare to go offline in September

Preparations for the multi-year refurbishment of Pickering Nuclear Generating Station are accelerating, with all four of the station's remaining units scheduled to go offline this September, according to a post on Invest Pickering.

Ontario Power Generation and its project partners are getting ready to renew Units 5 to 8, with the work set to begin early next year — starting with Unit 5, pending regulatory approval.

Once the four units are taken offline in September, the station will close one chapter of its operating life and begin another, part of what OPG describes as a step toward securing Ontario's clean energy future.

Training facility taking shape

At the centre of the preparations is a new 200,000-square-foot Retube Feeder and Boiler Replacement Training and Mock-up facility, which is on track to be completed in December.

The facility will feature detailed mock-ups of the Pickering reactor design and its components, along with a training mock-up of the station's lower boiler assembly — a feature unique to this refurbishment.

Like the full-scale reactor mock-up facility used to train workers for OPG's Darlington Refurbishment, which finished ahead of schedule and under budget, the Pickering hub will be critical to training more than 2,800 skilled trades staff before refurbishment work begins.

Construction is also advancing on other supporting buildings, including a two-storey, 38,000-square-foot modular Common Services Building that will be used by vendor partners. According to Invest Pickering, modular fabrication is helping the team work faster while meeting the strict requirements of building in a highly controlled environment.

Rehearsing a major milestone

At the Darlington Energy Complex, crews are building a full-scale dome mock-up in partnership with CanAtom to rehearse one of the project's most significant milestones: cutting into the top of the reactor dome to remove and replace 48 of the station's existing steam generators.

The structure — a curved, elevated concrete slab roughly 45 by 60 feet, rising nearly 40 feet above grade — is designed to closely replicate a section of the reactor building dome.

Elsewhere in the supply chain, BWXT Canada is assembling the heavy-duty steel vessels that will form Pickering's new steam generators, while ATS Industrial Automation is developing specialized tools for removing, inspecting and reinstalling fuel channels at the station.

OPG says the project team is also drawing on the training methods, best practices and more than 8,000 lessons learned from the Darlington Refurbishment, which was completed in March, as it works to deliver the Pickering project on schedule and on budget.

What it means for the province

Once the work is done, a refurbished Pickering Nuclear is expected to secure 2,100 megawatts of clean, reliable power for more than 30 years — enough electricity to power the equivalent of more than two million homes as Ontario's energy demand and economy grow.

The refurbishment is also expected to strengthen the province's nuclear supply chain, create and sustain thousands of jobs, and generate widespread economic benefits for Durham Region, Ontario and Canada.