Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant Resumes Commercial Operation

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) restarted commercial operation of reactor #6 of Kahiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant on April 16th. It became the first example of a reactor owned by TEPCO to resume its commercial operation since 2012 when the company stopped all the reactors for taking safety measures required after Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant had a severe accident in 2011. While TEPCO is expected to stably provide electricity for coming summer, the company that caused Fukushima accident has not restored public confidence on its operation.

 

The reactor #6 has 1.356 million kilowatt of power output. It can provide yearly 10 billion kilowatt that covers 4 to 5 percent of all demand of electricity to its customers in　metropolitan area of Tokyo. As Japan is suffering from high cost of oil caused by military attack of the United States on Iran, it is expected that TEPCO will compensate for shortage of oil import for the summer, the season which need great amount of electric power to cool down rooms in houses and buildings.

 

The reactor 6 passed the examination of Nuclear Regulation Agency (NRA) for safety in 2017, meeting stricter regulation established after the accident in Fukushima. However, the NRA prohibited starting operation when it found insufficient measures against terrorist attack in 2021. It took two years for TEPCO to finish safety measures and the NRA lifted the prohibition.

 

To resume nuclear power plant, TEPCO needed to have an approval from local government. The prefectural government of Niigata, where Kaishiwazaki-Kariwa plant is located, had been discussing on the resumption, and the governor of Niigata, Hideyo Hanazumi, finally decided to approve the resumption and the prefectural assembly followed his decision in late 2025.

 

TEPCO immediately started working for the resumption and restarted operation of reactor 6 on January 21st 2026. However, TEPCO could not reach a commercial operation smoothly. Soon after the resumption, the reactor stopped the operation with alarm beeping while extracting a control rod from the reactor. Although it resumed the operation on February 9th, then the company found malfunction in gauges for monitoring inside the reactor. After starting provision of electricity to capital area on February 16th, it again stopped when the company found leak of electricity on March 14th.

 

TEPCO is requested to reduce used nuclear fuels by government of Kashiwazaki city where the plant is located. Japan has no final disposal site for used nuclear fuels. Every nuclear power plant has to keep them in its own site. Although TEPCO expected to transport those used fuels to an intermediate storage site in Mutsu city, Aomori. However, governor of Aomori announced that the prefecture would no longer accept new nuclear fuels to the facility.

 

It is skeptical whether TEPCO can manage to safely keep highly radioactive nuclear fuels. After longtime effort of resuming major nuclear power plant for capital area, it is still unclear that TEPCO can stably provide electric power.

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