MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture -- Tohoku Electric Power Co. says there is no room for error in meeting electricity demand this winter, as the utility continues to rebuild a key thermal power station shattered by the March 11 disaster.
MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture -- Tohoku Electric Power Co. says there is no room for error in meeting electricity demand this winter, as the utility continues to rebuild a key thermal power station shattered by the March 11 disaster.
The coal-fired Haramachi power plant is not expected to restart until summer 2013, and work to remove damaged large machinery from the facility began only about a month ago.
"Under the current circumstances, even a brief interruption in operations is not allowed because it will have a significant impact (on supply capacity)," a Tohoku Electric Power official said.
The utility serves the six prefectures in the Tohoku region plus Niigata Prefecture. These northeastern prefectures are cold in the winter, keeping maximum electricity consumption as high as in summer due to demand for heating.
The Haramachi thermal power plant supplied 2 gigawatts of electricity of Tohoku Electric Power's pre-disaster supply capacity of 17.21 gigawatts.
But on March 11, an 18-meter-high tsunami, triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake, submerged its five-story main building up to the third-floor ceiling.
Recovery work started the following day but stalled after the government on March 15 told residents within a 30-kilometer radius of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to stay indoors.
The Haramachi facility is about 26 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima plant.
But work is now progressing at the plant, which was shown to the media on Oct. 6 for the first time since the March 11 quake.
"With rubble cleared from the plant site, recovery work has finally begun on a full scale," plant manager Kojiro Higuchi said. "We will try to reopen the plant as soon as possible."
A ship that was anchored at a pier and loaded with 75,000 tons of coal was left aground more than 100 meters offshore.
A coal unloader was torn apart by the tsunami, with its steel arms twisted as if they were made of putty.
An electrostatic precipitator, key equipment that removes dust from smoke, was also rendered unusable when a large building that housed it collapsed in the tsunami. It will take about 18 months to reconstruct the building.
Tohoku Electric Power's supply capacity will fall to 13 gigawatts this winter, below the maximum consumption of 14.7 gigawatts last winter.
The utility plans to make up for any shortfall with 3.31 gigawatts provided by Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima plant.
"An extremely severe condition will continue," Makoto Kaiwa, president of Tohoku Electric Power, told a news conference on Sept. 30. "But we have no plans to implement rotating blackouts in principle."
However, considering the shortage of surplus capacity, any operating problems at a major power station could jeopardize the company's scenario.
Troubles have occurred at thermal power stations across the country partly because they are running at full capacity to make up for the nuclear power plants shut down due to the accident at the Fukushima plant.
In August, Tohoku Electric Power suspended operations at an oil-fired power plant in Akita because of a piping problem.
In addition, 16,500 kiloliters of heavy and light oil leaked at the Haramachi power plant after the tsunami damaged fuel tanks for power generators.
Workers pumped out oil and removed oil-soaked soil until August.