Bruce shuts Ontario Bruce 6 reactor due low demand

NEW YORK, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Bruce Power LP's 822-megawatt Unit 6 at the Bruce nuclear power station in Ontario shut on Nov. 15 due to a surplus of base load generation in the province, the company said in a release.

The company did not say when the unit would return to service. Electricity traders guessed the unit would return within a few days.

The 6,261-MW Bruce station is located in Tiverton on the eastern shore of Lake Huron about 155 miles (250 km) northwest of Toronto. There are four 750-MW units, 1 to 4, at the A station, which entered service in 1977 to 1979, and three 822-MW units, 5 to 7, and one 795-MW unit, 8, at the B station, which entered service in 1984 to 1987.

The company expected to increase Unit 8's output to about 822 MW by modifying the fuel-loading system by early 2010.

All of the other units remained in service.

Bruce planned to spend up to C$3.4 billion to restart Units 1 and 2. Ontario Hydro, the former province-owned power company, shut Unit 1 in 1997 and Unit 2 in 1995 because they needed extensive upgrades.

The return of Units 1 and 2 would replace more than 20 percent of the province's 6,400 MW of coal-fired generation, which the government wants to shut by 2014 for health and environmental reasons.

After the return of Units 1 and 2, Bruce said it will focus on refurbishing the remaining Units 3-8 rather than build new reactors at Bruce.

Bruce has said it planned to start work on Unit 3 by about 2011, Unit 4 by about 2016 and the Bruce B units sometime between 2015 and 2020.