Kishida looks to restart Kashiwazaki-Kariwa units

Tepco applied for Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approval of its design and construction plan for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa units 6 and 7 in September 2013. It submitted information on safety upgrades across the site and at those two units. These 1356 MWe Advanced Boiling Water Reactors began commercial operation in 1996 and 1997, respectively, and were the first Japanese boiling water reactors to be put forward for restart.

In 2017, Tepco received permission from the NRA to restart units 6 and 7. However, in early 2021, the company notified the NRA of malfunctions in intruder detection equipment on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa site. In addition, it reported the unauthorised use of an ID card. In April 2021, the NRA issued an administrative order to Tepco prohibiting it from moving nuclear fuel at the plant until improvements in security measures there have been confirmed by additional inspections. This order was lifted in December last year after inspections confirmed that measures had been enhanced at the site.

Additional regulatory inspections will still be required before Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 7 - which has been offline since August 2011 - can resume operation. In addition, consent must also be sought from the local governor. Although the central government has been seeking Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi's approval for the restart, he has yet to announce whether he will give his consent.

Speaking at a GX (Green Transformation) Executive Council meeting on 27 August, Kishida - who will step down next month - said: "I will do my best to advance GX one step at a time during the remaining time of my term. One of these is preparations for the restart of nuclear power plants in eastern Japan."

He noted that since the March 2011 accident at Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi plant, "eastern Japan has relied on nearly 70% of its electricity from thermal power plants concentrated in Tokyo Bay and along the Pacific coast, making it vulnerable to disaster risks". In addition, he said "a disparity in electricity rates has also emerged between the east and west of Japan, where nuclear power generation is progressing".

Kishida continued: "With the primary premise of ensuring safety, we will respond to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, which complies with the new regulatory standards, in accordance with our policy of restarting the plant only after gaining the understanding of the local community.

"In order to achieve restart with the understanding of the local community, the operator and the government must respond together, taking into account the requests from the local community. For this reason, we will hold a nuclear power-related ministerial meeting next week, attended by all the ministers involved in the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, to confirm and give instructions for concrete measures to be taken."

Although it has completed work at the other idled units at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, Tepco is concentrating its resources on units 6 and 7 while it deals with the clean-up at Fukushima Daiichi. Restarting those two units - which have been offline for periodic inspections since March 2012 and August 2011, respectively - would increase the company's earnings by an estimated JPY100 billion (USD692 million) per year.