Fuel loading under way at Japanese BWR ahead of restart
The process of loading fuel assemblies into the core of unit 2 at the Shimane nuclear power plant ahead of its planned restart in December began today, Chugoku Electric Power Company announced. It is set to become the second Japanese boiling water reactor (BWR) to be restarted.
The process of moving a total of 560 fuel assemblies from the unit's fuel pool to the reactor and loading them into the core is expected to take about a week to complete, the utility said.
Revised regulations were announced by Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) in July 2013, which must be met before reactors can receive permission to restart. These set out requirements for plants to be able to respond to a variety of natural phenomena as well as establish new measures to mitigate the effects of severe accidents, such as reactor core damage caused by beyond design basis events. Chugoku applied to the NRA in December 2013 for inspections to verify whether measures taken at Shimane unit 2 - which has been offline since 27 January 2012 - meet the new safety standards.
In June 2021, Shimane 2 became the 17th Japanese reactor to pass the regulator's safety screenings and the fifth BWR - the same type as those at the Fukushima Daiichi plant - to receive regulatory approval to restart.
Following approvals by the cities of Matsue, Izumo, Yasugi and Unnan, in June 2022 the governor of Shimane prefecture approved the restart of Shimane 2. His approval marked the completion of the process to gain the consent of local communities for the 789 MWe BWR to resume operation.
Earlier this month, Chugoku released a revised schedule for the restart of the unit. The reactor is expected to restart in early December, with power generation scheduled to begin in late December. The reactor will resume commercial operation in January 2025.
"With safety as our number one priority, we will steadily proceed with each and every preparation for restarting operations, including carrying out fuel loading work and inspection and testing of equipment related to reactor startup," the company said.
Unit 2 at Tohoku Electric Power Company's Onagawa nuclear power plant is schedule to restart on Tuesday 29 October, becoming the first BWR in Japan to be restarted. The loading of fuel assemblies into that reactor began on 3 September and was completed on 9 September.
