Idle Lepreau nuclear plant threatens to post worst operational year in 4 decades

An end-of-the-fiscal-year breakdown at Point Lepreau is worsening what may turn out to be the poorest operational year on record for the 42-year-old plant.

The nuclear generating station was shutdown on Monday after a malfunctioning cooling fan was deemed to need immediate repair. That fix is expected to take almost until the end of the month  

"Work is underway to repair an issue with the cooling fan and motor assembly," D'Arcy Walsh, an N.B. Power spokesperson, said in an email. "We expect the station to return to service by the end of next week."

N.B. Power's fiscal year ends on March 31, and the latest shutdown means the plant may finish the year having operated for as few as 101 days.   

WATCH | Performance meltdown: The increasing downtime at New Brunswick's 42-year-old nuclear plant:

Annus horribilis: The Point Lepreau nuclear generating station is having what may be its worst year ever

15 hours ago

Duration 2:26

The Point Lepreau generating station went online in 1983 but has rarely had the operational problems it has suffered this year. N.B. Power president Lori Clark says it’s become apparent that refurbishing only the nuclear half of the station more than a decade ago was a mistake, as breakdowns in non-nuclear equipment continue to plague the facility.

A scheduled maintenance shutdown last spring, followed by the discovery of a major issue last summer in Lepreau's generator, previously had the plant offline from early last April to mid-December. The latest problem is dragging the year's low productivity further 

Not including the years Lepreau was offline between 2008 and 2013 for a $2.5-billion refurbishment, the plant's least productive year was in 1995, when it underwent work on sagging pressure tubes in its reactor and operated for just over 100 days.   

Downtime at Lepreau is expensive for N.B. Power and has been cited as the primary cause for its current financial problems.

In February, N.B. Power president Lori Clark told MLAs the fortunes of the utility are largely dependent on how well, or poorly, the nuclear plant performs.

"I've always said that when Lepreau does well, the rest of the company does well — it's a very, very important asset on our system," she said.  

Since it returned from refurbishment in late 2012, Lepreau has suffered a number of problems and has been taken offline for maintenance and repairs for more than 1,100 days in total.

More than one third of that downtime has occurred just in the last three years.

It has been estimated by the utility to cost between $1 million and $4 million per day when Lepreau is idle, depending on the time of year and the cost of generating or buying replacement power.

Clark blamed Lepreau's poor performance on many of the non-nuclear components of the station being more than 40 years old, and in a frank admission last month, said the utility was to blame for not refurbishing the entire plant when it had the chance.

"I think we really have to go back to 2012 to talk about Lepreau," said Clark. 

"That refurbishment was only on the nuclear side of the station. Unfortunately, there was very little work done on the secondary or conventional side of the station," she said.

"We've learned a lot from that. You can't run a nuclear plant just by improving the nuclear side because the energy has to come out through the conventional side."