Japan to restart the world's largest nuclear power plant in January
Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) plans to restart one unit at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in January. With an installed capacity of more than 8 GW, the plant is the largest nuclear power plant in the world. However, it was shut down after a powerful earthquake and devastating tsunami led to the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. TEPCO is currently planning a partial resumption of operations.
In early September, the Japanese government approved several steps intended to help bring the nuclear power plant back online. TEPCO has been planning to restart the plant for some time, which is expected to help the company reduce electricity generation costs. Japan's nuclear regulator lifted the ban on operating the plant last December. The ban had been imposed in 2021 because of several safety shortcomings.
However, the plant's operator first needed to obtain approval from local authorities to restart the plant. According to Reuters, members of the Niigata Prefectural Assembly, where the plant is located, gave the green light to a partial restart this week.
"As the company responsible for the accident at Fukushima Daiichi, we will apply the lessons learned... We will proceed with the restart, the first in 14 years, with safety as our top priority," TEPCO President Tomiaki Kobayakawa said, according to Reuters.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant has seven generating units with a total installed capacity of 8.2 GW. TEPCO currently plans to restart one 1.3 GW unit during January. Another unit with the same capacity could be restarted around 2030. The future of the plant's other units remains uncertain, and TEPCO has said it could permanently decommission some of them.
Japan has so far restarted 14 nuclear units, while operating a total of 54 before the Fukushima accident. In November, the country also unveiled a proposal for a public lending scheme that would support its plan to double the share of nuclear power in electricity generation, according to Reuters.
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This article is a machine translation of the Czech original and has not yet been fully reviewed. In case of any doubt, please refer to the Czech version.
