Point Lepreau maintenance shutdown to employ about 600 contractors, tradespeople

The Point Lepreaunuclear generating station will be shut down next month for up to five weeks for planned maintenance that will involve about 600 contractors and tradespeople from across New Brunswick and elsewhere, NB Power announced on Tuesday.

"The work to be completed is diverse with jobs on equipment and systems on both the nuclear and conventional parts of the station," the utility said in a statement.

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Staff have already started to prepare for the outage, which is scheduled to begin on April 7 and is expected to take four or five weeks to complete, according to the statement.

Area residents will notice an increase in traffic around the station as workers perform more than 5,000 "activities,"NB Power said.

March 27 deadline to intervene on licence

Meanwhile, the public hearing process for NB Power's application for a five-year powerreactor operating licence will continue on May 10 and 11 in Saint John.

Registered interveners will have an opportunity to make presentations to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) at that time.

Citizens have until March 27 to register with the independent federal nuclear regulatorto participate as an intervener.

During a publicinformation session last month, citizens raised concerns about the safety and reliability of Atlantic Canada's only nuclear reactor, given a number of shutdowns in recent years.

NB Power applied to the CNSC for the operating licence last summer andwentthrough the first phase of thetwo-part hearing process with the federal regulatorin Ottawa on Jan. 26.

NB Power and CNSC staff gave presentations to the commission and commission members questioned both parties about the information that was submitted.

The second phase will see continued participation by NB Power and CNSC staff, as well as the public interveners.

Point Lepreau's current operating licence expires in June.

Has missed targets

NB Power's faith in Point Lepreauwas challenged at an Energy and Utilities Board rate hearing last month.

The utility contends the nuclear plant will soon be operating at an annual 98 per cent capacity factor even though it hasn't managed any better than 79 per cent in the five years since its $2.5 billionrefurbishment.

During that rate hearing, NB Powersaid it intends to invest up to $150 million more in upgrades to the non-nuclear side of Point Lepreau toimprove its reliability.

The Point Lepreaunuclear generating station is a 660 megawatt (net) nuclear generating station and a base load contributor to the electrical grid.

Last month, it produced 445,094 net megawatt-hours of non-emitting electricity,representing about 50 per cent of the total net generation from NB Power stations, according to Tuesday's release.

Lepreauproduces enough non-emitting electricity to power more than 333,000 homes per year and is a major component ofthe provincial goal of having as much as 75 per cent of the electricity used in New Brunswick coming from clean, renewable or non-emitting sources by 2020, according to NB Power.