Today the province has approved the final cost figure for the Pickering refurbishment. While more expensive than Darlington, this was expected, due to the considerably more extensive scope of work including the replacement of all 48 steam generators.
While the final figure is higher than Canadians For Nuclear Energy initially estimated during its Save Pickering campaign, this is explained by both the effects of inflation as well as the expansion of the project scope to include the fitment of a 1.5km long deep water inlet like is used at Darlington and Bruce, which will permanently eliminate the algae bloom issue that Pickering has sometimes experienced during the summer months.
Offsetting the increased cost is the longer pressure tube life Pickering experiences and the expected increase in unit capacity, which we previous saw demonstrated by Unit 5 at 560MWe before header temps forced a derate. If this is extended across all four units, the B unit output increases to 2,240MWe post refurbishment.