‘Robotic’ refurbishment makes history at Bruce Power

Bruce Power is using AI technology to decrease radiation exposure for employees during their refurbishments. CTV London's Scott Miller reports.

Bruce Power has made history by refurbishing a nuclear reactor using fully automated robotic tooling.

“We made history by being the first nuclear utility to use this method. We didn’t invent automation in robotics, but we were the first to use it for this method, to rebuild a nuclear reactor,” said Byron House, senior director of Major Component Replacement at Bruce Power.

Bruce Power just completed the first fully automated installation of 480 calandria tubes into Unit 3 at their sprawling nuclear plant near Lake Huron.

The robotic work started with automated inspection of the reactor core, involving artificial intelligence software. Then a remotely operated crane delivered the new calandria and pressure tubes to automated robotic tools for precision installation.

It’s a process that used to take several hours per tube installation, but was, at its best, whittled down to a record setting 58 minutes.

“That’s a remarkable performance. And really, it builds a platform that we’re going to see continued improvement in the future, which really bodes well for the project overall,” said House.

Bruce Power is nearing the midpoint of a 13-year, $13 billion project to refurbish six of their eight nuclear reactors. House said using robotic automation means nuclear workers no longer have to enter the most radioactive portions of the reactor during inspection and refurbishment, drastically limiting their radiation exposure.

“There’s a reason why some of these automation techniques are valuable because if it’s a one off activity, we would not do something like this. But the repetitive nature of it, the fact that we have to do 480 channels over five reactor units, makes the case pretty compelling for us,” said House.

Practicing using Bruce Power’s new automatic tooling happens offsite at their Major Component Replacement Training Facility in Kincardine that has a full scale model of the interior of a CANDU reactor. Time and money spent ahead of time to save money and time in the long run, say Bruce Power officials.

“We remain on schedule, on budget with units three and four. Certainly looking forward to continuing that work and making sure that we continue to find innovations and improvements that impact cost, budget, and safety,” said Bruce Power’s John Peevers.

House said the record setting automation will hopefully mean the rest of the reactor refurbishments, scheduled to happen until 2033, will be completed not only on time, but possibly quicker than expected.

“We’ve created essentially the most advanced toolset for the trades to use in the world,” said House.

About 95 per cent of the materials and supplies used to make it happen, said House, are built in Canada, predominantly in southern Ontario.