nuclear-news

New Brunswick’s nuclear plant’s ongoing troubles an early threat to Holt government finances

N.B. Power’s Point Lepreau generating station has been offline since April with no definite return date

Robert Jones · CBC News ·  Oct 28, 2024

More than 200 days after going offline for what was supposed to be a 98-day maintenance shutdown the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station remains idle with no definite word on when it will be able to generate electricity again.

In an email last week  the utility declined to commit to a previously estimated mid-November restart date and will say only that it has a “goal” of completing repairs on the station’s troubled generator sometime in November.

However, reconnecting to New Brunswick’s electrical grid following repairs will take an uncertain amount of additional time, according to N.B. Power spokesperson Dominique Couture.

“The next steps will be to proceed with start-up activities including Station equipment checks and testing protocol,”  Couture said in an email to CBC News about what happens when repairs are complete.

“The timeline for full return to service will be determined by how these activities progress.”

That is a potential problem for the incoming government of Susan Holt, whose Liberal Party won the New Brunswick election a week ago.

Cost climbing daily

Bills for the latest troubles afflicting the nuclear plant passed $100 million in late September and are climbing at a rate of $1 million a day or more with some uncertainty over who will pay.

An upcoming decision of the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board will rule on a number of matters concerning N.B. Power and the rates it charges, including whether Lepreau breakdown costs should continue to be paid by N.B. Power customers or be shifted to the utility and its owner — the provincial government.

Hearings conducted by the EUB into those matters ended nine weeks ago, but no decision has been released to date.

“There are many, many issues and the board will do its very best to endeavour to have a decision as quickly as we can, but that obviously will take some time,” the EUB’s Christopher Stewart noted at the conclusion of final arguments in the rate hearing on Aug. 26.

More complex than expected

The latest problems at Lepreau began after it was taken offline April 6 for what was supposed to be a 98-day maintenance shutdown.

After sitting idle for three months during that period, the plant’s 700-megawatt generator, which had not been among the components worked on during the outage, showed a problem during routine testing done on all plant equipment prior to being restarted………………………………………………………………………….

 N.B. Power now says it is not sure when the plant will be operational.

Colder weather will increase energy replacement costs

In the summer, the utility told the EUB that delaying Lepreau’s return to service by seven weeks, from mid-July to Sept. 1, would add an estimated $71 million in unbudgeted costs to the original 98-day maintenance outage.

That included an expected $20 million in unbudgeted repairs to the generator and $51 million in costs to pay for replacement energy while Lepreau remained offline. Adding another 11 weeks or more to that downtime, some of that during colder fall weather when replacement energy costs begin to rise, will more than double those amounts.

It is a serious financial setback for N.B. Power.

Ratepayer frustrations

Major customers of N.B. Power have been expressing increasing levels of alarm about the nuclear plant’s poor performance and frustration that they are having to pay for its shortcomings…………………………………………………..

unlike storm damage, or rising fuel prices that are outside N.B. Power’s control, failings at the nuclear plant can mostly be traced to poor maintenance, poor management and poor decision-making.

They argued N.B. Power and the provincial government should be forced to absorb the financial costs of Lepreau’s troubles on their own and asked the EUB to make that happen in its ruling………………………………….  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/lepeau-nuclear-offline-generator-repairs-maintenance-cost-rates-holt-government-1.7363968

October 30, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized