Pickering Nuclear Generating Station
| Pickering Nuclear Generating Station | |
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A unit at the Pickering plant
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 Location of Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario
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| Country | Canada |
| Location | Pickering, Durham Region, Ontario |
| Coordinates | 43°48′42″N 79°03′57″W / 43.81167°N 79.06583°WCoordinates: 43°48′42″N 79°03′57″W / 43.81167°N 79.06583°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Construction began | 1966 |
| Commission date | 1971-73 (A station) 1983-86 (B station) |
| Decommission date | 1997 (Units A2 and A3) Permanently shutdown and defuelled, but NOT yet decommissioned. |
| Owner(s) | Ontario Power Generation (OPG) |
| Nuclear power station | |
| Reactor type | CANDU |
| Thermal power station | |
| Cooling source | Lake Ontario |
| Power generation | |
| Units operational | 4× 516 MW 2× 515 MW |
| Units decommissioned | 2× 515 MW |
| Nameplate capacity | 3,252 MW |
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Website OPG - Pickering Nuclear |
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Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is a Canadian nuclear power station located on the north shore of Lake Ontario in Pickering, Ontario. The facility derives its name from the City (originally Township) of Pickering in which it is located. It produces about 14% of Ontario's power and employs 3,000 workers.
Co-located at the Pickering station is a single 1.8 MWe wind turbine named the OPG 7 commemorative turbine.
The reactors can be classified as follows:
PICKERING A
PICKERING B
The facility was constructed in stages between 1966 and 1986 by the provincial Crown corporation, Ontario Hydro. In April 1999, Ontario Hydro was split into five component Crown corporations with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) taking over all electricity generating stations. OPG continues to operate the Pickering station.
The Pickering station is one of the largest nuclear facilities in the world, comprising six operating CANDU nuclear reactors with a total output of 3,100 MW when all units are on line, and two non-operating units currently shut down in safe storage. The facility is connected to the North American power grid via numerous 230,000 and 500,000-volt transmission lines.
The facility was operated as two distinct stations, Pickering A (Units 1 to 4) and Pickering B (Units 5 to 8) until 2011. While primarily administrative in nature, the division was not wholly artificial, as there are some distinct differences in design between the two groups of stations. (Example: The Pickering A units employ a moderator dump as a shutdown mechanism, a feature not found in Pickering B.) There are, however, a number of systems and structures in common between the two stations; the most notable of these is the shared vacuum building, a negative pressure containment system. The operation of Pickering A and B was unified in order to reduce costs now that Pickering A Units 2 and 3 are shut down in safe storage.
On December 31, 1997 the four Pickering A reactors were shut down by Ontario Hydro and placed in lay up, suspending work on upgrades to the shutdown system. Ontario Hydro committed to restarting the units, but the project underwent long delays and large cost over-runs.
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Wikipedia