The second unit of the Darlington nuclear power plant in Bowmanville, Ontario (Canada), has reached first criticality and its operator, the Canadian power group Ontario Power Generation (OPG), will now carry out a series of heat up and low-pressure tests over the next few weeks, before ramping up the 878 MW reactor and reconnecting it to the power grid in the spring of 2020.
In late March 2020, OPC completed the reconstruction of the second unit of the nuclear power plant. The 3,512 MW Darlington facility consists of four operating CANDU reactors rated 878 MW each, which started commercial operation between 1990 and 1993. OPG started to refurbish the 878 MW Darlington-2 CANDU nuclear reactor in October 2016 (reassembly started in June 2018) in order to extend its operating life for another 30-year period. The other units will be refurbished later; works on the third reactor were expected to start in May 2020 but will be postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The entire refurbishment programme, estimated at C$12.8bn (US$9bn) is expected to be completed by 2026.
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