Ontario Power Generation
Operating Our Station
Every day at Pickering B hundreds of tasks are completed by the employees who operate and maintain our station. Over the course of the year, this adds up to hundreds of thousands of activities completed on both our conventional and nuclear station components.
Pickering B employees are accountable for a myriad of functions to ensure safe operation of our station and production of approximately 10 per cent of Ontario’s electricity including:
- Operate the nuclear reactors that create the heat and steam needed for electricity production;
- Operate our conventional systems including the turbines and generators where nuclear energy is turned into electricity;
- Maintain our operating equipment and safety systems on both the reactive and conventional sides of the operation;
- Engineer the components and systems that comprise our station;
- Oversee the chemistry requirements that ensure safe operation and environmental protection of our station processes;
- Ensure compliance with our ISO 14001 environmental program;
- Ensure radiation protection of our workers and the public;
- Provide fire and emergency services to the site including on-going inspections of our conventional safety systems;
- Provide security for our station to ensure the nuclear plant is safe and secure 24 hours a day, seven days a week;
- Create, plan and drill our emergency preparedness systems on-site working in conjunction with our municipal, regional and provincial emergency management partners;
- Work with our site host communities to ensure understanding and openness and transparency of our operations and ensure OPG is a strong community partner and citizen;
- And much more.
Operating Safely and Securely at OPG:
OPG has its own rigorous safety review process including a reporting mechanism, the Corrective Action Program, allowing all employees to report any matter, regardless how seemingly insignificant that they observe in their day-to-day routines. Each one of these reports is given further scrutiny by subject matter experts to determine if further action is required. Reporting through this process is highly encouraged as part of OPG Nuclear’s strong commitment to a robust safety culture.
Pickering B and its Regulators
In all the actions we undertake every day, OPG is accountable to many agencies including municipal, regional, provincial and federal levels of government and their agencies. One of OPG Nuclear’s many defence-in-depth safety processes is the rigorous regulatory system we operate under.
Click here to learn more about OPG’s Regulatory Reporting.
