Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Chugoku Electric Power Co. plans to restart Unit 2 of its Shimane Nuclear Power Plant, which has been shut down since January 2012, in December. This will be the first time that a boiling water reactor (BWR) will be restarted in Japan.
Revised regulations were announced by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) in July 2013, and reactors must meet the regulations before being allowed to restart operations. These establish requirements for plants that can respond to a variety of natural phenomena, as well as establish new measures to reduce the impact of serious accidents such as core damage caused by events that exceed design criteria. In December 2013, the Chinese government applied to the regulatory commission for an inspection to verify whether measures taken at the Shimane nuclear power plant, which has been shut down since January 27, 2012, meet new safety standards.
The Chinese government built a 15-meter-high sea wall to protect factories from tsunamis and prepared for a possible volcanic eruption of Mt. Sanbe. Initially, the aim was to complete construction work such as seismic reinforcement of Shimane 2 by the end of February 2023.
In June 2021, the NRA approved a draft report stating that Shimane 2 meets the revised regulatory standards. The unit’s assessment was formally adopted in September 2021 following a public comment period and other procedures, paving the way for it to resume operation pending local consent. Shimane 2 becomes the 17th Japanese reactor to pass regulatory safety review and the fifth BWR of the same type as the one at Fukushima Daiichi to receive regulatory approval for restart.
After receiving approval from Matsue City, Izumo City, Yasugi City, and Unnan City, the Governor of Shimane Prefecture approved the restart of Shimane Unit 2 in June 2022. The Governor’s approval completes the process of obtaining local community buy-in to restart the 789MWe BWR. I will resume driving.
Shimane Unit 2 was scheduled to restart in August, but China postponed the restart due to the need for safety improvement work.
The utility has now announced a revised schedule for restarting units. It is scheduled to begin loading fuel into the reactor’s core on October 28, and is expected to restart operations in early December. It is scheduled to start generating power in late December and resume commercial operation in January 2025.
“We will continue to make every effort to ensure that pre-use inspections by operators proceed steadily, with safety as our top priority, and we will also respond appropriately to pre-use checks by the Nuclear Regulation Authority to ensure thorough preparations.” Towards operation,” China said.
To date, 11 nuclear reactors have restarted in Japan, all of which were pressurized water reactors.
Shimane Unit 1 is a BWR with an output of 460 MWe that began commercial operation in March 1974 and is currently being decommissioned. In August 2018, the Chinese government began regulatory procedures for the start-up of Shimane Unit 3, a new 1373 MWe boiling water reactor that is nearing completion.
