Kansai Electric Power Co. and Hokkaido Electric Power Co. plan to resume commercial operations of two nuclear reactors that have already been running at full capacity in a prolonged inspection phase.
Kansai Electric Power Co. and Hokkaido Electric Power Co. plan to resume commercial operations of two nuclear reactors that have already been running at full capacity in a prolonged inspection phase.
The utilities will soon apply to the government for a final check of the No. 1 reactor at Kansai Electric's Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture and the No. 3 reactor at Hokkaido Electric's Tomari nuclear power plant in Hokkaido, sources said July 12.
If the restarts are approved, they will be the first reactors to resume commercial operations since the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
However, the reactors have already been operating at full capacity for four months in the "adjustment operation" of regular safety inspections.
In conventional cases, the adjustment operation lasts for about a month. The plant operator then applies for "total load capability inspections" by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to officially resume commercial operations.
The adjustment operations started on March 7 for the No. 3 reactor at Tomari and on March 10 for the No. 1 reactor at Oi.
But Kansai Electric and Hokkaido Electric have not applied for NISA's final check, saying they have yet to obtain an understanding from local governments. The electricity produced during the adjustment operations has been supplied to users.
NISA finally instructed the two utilities to apply for the check.
Utilities place great importance on local government approval for operating nuclear plants, although such consent is not required by law for commercial operations of reactors.
The Fukui prefectural government plans to tacitly approve the official restart of the Oi reactor.
"The issue of whether to make an application is decided by the (central) government and the utility," a prefectural government official told the prefectural assembly on July 8.
But the Hokkaido government has yet to respond to Hokkaido Electric's plan to resume commercial operations of the Tomari reactor.
The two are the only reactors undergoing regular inspections that are running in the adjustment-operation stage.
(This article was written by Satoshi Seii and Yoichi Tsunashima.)