Japan’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, the world’s largest by potential capacity, is set to restart next week following a suspension caused by a technical alarm, officials said Friday.
Takeyuki Inagaki, head of the TEPCO-run facility, told a press conference that the reactor is scheduled “to start up on February 9.”
The announcement follows an aborted restart on January 21, which was halted the next day after a monitoring system alarm was triggered. According to Inagaki, the alarm caused by a misconfigured setting detected minor fluctuations in electrical current in a cable, all within safe operational limits. TEPCO has since adjusted the alarm settings, confirming that the reactor is safe to operate.
Commercial operation is expected to begin on or after March 18, following a final comprehensive inspection. Only one of the plant’s seven reactors will resume operation initially.
The facility had been offline since Japan shut down its nuclear fleet in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, when a massive earthquake and tsunami led to meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa will be the first TEPCO-operated unit to restart since then. TEPCO also continues to manage the decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi.
Japan, which lacks significant domestic energy resources, is seeking to revive nuclear power to reduce fossil fuel dependence, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and meet rising electricity demand driven in part by artificial intelligence technologies.
Public opinion in the surrounding area remains deeply divided. A Niigata prefecture survey in September found that roughly 60 percent of residents oppose the restart, while 37 percent support it.
In January, seven local groups opposed to the restart submitted a petition signed by nearly 40,000 people to TEPCO and Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, citing concerns that the plant sits on an active seismic fault and recalling a strong earthquake that struck the area in 2007.
AFP
