POWER May 2013 - 54

NUCLEAR POWER
OPG Proposes New Nuclear
Construction at Darlington
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has issued a License to Prepare
Site for Ontario Power Generation's Darlington station expansion. This
is the first of a series of licenses required to prepare, construct, and
operate new nuclear reactors and the first of its kind issued in Canada
in over a quarter-century.
James M. Hylko
O
n August 17, 2012, the Joint Review
Panel (JRP) of the Canadian Nuclear
Safety Commission (CNSC) issued
a License to Prepare Site (LTPS) to Ontario
Power Generation Inc. (OPG) for a new
nuclear power plant project at its Darlington
site (Figure 1). The license application covers
up to a four-unit plant expansion called
Darlington B, with a maximum combined
output of 4,800 MWe. However, it should be
noted that the provincial government's most
recent plans call for development of only two
units for a total of 2,000 MWe. OPG will be
the owner and operator of the new plant if it
is approved by the government.
The Darlington B site is located on the
shore of Lake Ontario, in the Municipality
of Clarington, approximately 65 km east of
Toronto (Figure 2). The adjacent site is currently
home to the four-unit, 3,512-MWe
CANDU Darlington Nuclear Generating
Station (Darlington A), the Darlington
Waste Management Facility, and a licensed
used fuel dry storage facility. The portion
proposed for development of Darlington B
is primarily the eastern third of the plant
site. Built in stages, the Darlington A units
entered commercial service from 1990
through 1993 and now provide about 20%
of Ontario's electricity needs.
Development of additional nuclear capacity
at the Darlington site is part of a
February 2011 integrated power system
plan that includes refurbishment of the existing
Darlington units and Bruce Nuclear
Generating Station. On March 14, 2013,
OPG received environmental approval for
the Darlington A refurbishment, which is
expected to run from 2016 to 2023 and cost
between C$6 billion and C$10 billion. (The
U.S. and Canadian dollars have been at
virtual parity.) The province's 2010 LongTerm
Energy Plan (LTEP), which calls for
nuclear supplying about 50% of total generation
going forward, found the new units
54
1. Darlington A. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has received a License to Prepare Site
(LTPS) from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the first in a series of required licenses.
OPG plans to build up to two new nuclear units on its Darlington site (though the LTPS covers
four potential units), east of the existing units shown here. Courtesy: OPG
are necessary to replace nuclear power
it will lose when its Pickering units shut
down; that shutdown was originally scheduled
to occur in stages between 2014 and
2016 but has been pushed back to 2020.
The 2010 plan notes that since the 2007
LTEP, which identified a need for new nuclear
planning, " demand has declined and
renewable generation has become a bigger
contributor to the system. Investment in renewables,
the reduction in demand, and the
availability of natural gas have all reduced
the immediate need for new nuclear. However,
to preserve the long-term reliability of
the system, particularly for baseload generation,
additional investment in nuclear generation
will be required. " Overall, by 2030,
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nuclear capacity is projected to be about
1,000 MW lower than in 2012 (see " Ontario
Goes Coal-Free in a Decade " on p. 26).
In June last year, OPG signed agreements
with Westinghouse Electric and SNC
Lavalin's Candu Energy Inc. for the preparation
of construction plans, schedules, and
cost estimates for two new units at Darlington.
Candu Energy will be preparing for an
enhanced Candu 6 reactor, while Westinghouse
will be preparing for construction
of its AP1000 reactor. The OPG noted that
" Under the terms of the agreements, each
company will be given 12 months to develop
its report. The completed reports will be
analyzed and forwarded to the Province for
its consideration. "
POWER | May 2013

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POWER May 2013

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