Sendai: Delayed till April

January 23, 2015

Sendai nuclear plant's restart delayed to April

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150123_27.html

Jan. 23, 2015 - Updated 08:19 UTC+1

The restart of the Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, has been put off again due to a document revision.

The plant operator, Kyushu Electric Power Company, has been revising a construction plan for one of its two reactors. The document describes the facility's design in detail.

This is one of the documents needed to obtain approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority for the restart. The other is a set of rules for operation and emergency responses.

Kyushu Electric says the plan could be submitted after the middle of next month. This is the second delay in the planned restart of the facility.

In September last year, the plant became the first in the country to meet the new government regulations introduced after the Fukushima accident in 2011.
The host city's mayor, the prefecture's governor and local assemblies have all approved the restart plan.

The latest delay pushes back the restart until April or later, pending the regulatory agency's approval of the plan and inspections.

All the commercial nuclear reactors in Japan are now offline.