New grid powers up New Brunswick

The New Brunswick electric grid has approximately 660 additional megawatts online now that the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station (PLNGS) is operating at 100 percent reactor power.

PLNGS is a base load contributor to the New Brunswick electrical grid. It produces enough non-emitting electricity to power more than 333,000 homes per year and is a major piece of both our domestic energy supply and export sales.

According to Paul Doucet, a spokesman for NB Power, PLNGS is a major component of the generating assets that will contribute to the goal of having as much as 75 percent of the electricity used in New Brunswick coming from clean, renewable or non-emitting sources by 2020.

The station was taken offline last month in order to facilitate repairs to one of the station’s stand-by safety systems, which allowed the station to be back online Oct. 1.

The net capacity factor for the unit in September was 76 percent. Capacity factor is the megawatt-hour output of a generating station compared to the maximum that could be produced. PLNGS produced approximately 50 percent of the total net generation from NB Power generating stations during the same month.