Restart of Sendai plant won't be immediate

August 6, 2014

Paperwork forces Kyushu Electric to delay reactor restarts

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201408060038 

By RYUTA KOIKE/ Staff Writer

Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s failure to submit paperwork will postpone the resumption of operations at its Sendai nuclear plant, despite the reactors having cleared tougher safety standards last month.

The utility announced the delay at an examination board meeting with the Nuclear Regulation Authority on Aug. 5.

The Sendai plant reactors in Satsuma-Sendai, Kagoshima Prefecture, in July became the first to meet the NRA’s new safety standards designed to prevent critical damage from earthquakes and tsunami. The company was expected to restart the two reactors in autumn.

However, the restarts are unlikely to happen this year because the NRA needs time to review the paperwork and inspect the plant’s equipment.

Kyushu Electric has yet to submit to the NRA documentation on the “construction plans” that recalculate the plant’s structural strength.

That report is expected to be tens of thousands of pages long, covering precise details of the nuclear plant’s design.

“There is much more to do than we originally expected, and it’s taking a lot of time,” said Akira Nakamura, a managing executive officer of the power company.

In April, Kyushu Electric expressed its intentions to have the paperwork ready by the end of May. The company later pushed back the date to sometime after July, and delayed it once again. The documentation is now expected to be submitted in late September at the earliest.

The NRA came up with the stricter standards after the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. All reactors, including the ones at the Sendai plant, were shut down following the disaster. Currently, no reactors are operating in Japan.

Kyushu nuclear plant may not be restarted before winter

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The operator of a nuclear power plant on the main island of Kyushu said Tuesday that documents required to be filed before obtaining final safety clearance for the facility's restart will not be ready before late September, possibly delaying the planned restart at least until winter.

Two reactors at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture were expected to go back online around this fall, after the units last month became the first in the country to clear a safety hurdle based on new regulations introduced following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The utility, which serves the Kyushu region, still needs to submit to the Nuclear Regulation Authority additional documents detailing plant equipment and construction work that are needed to enhance the plant's safety measures against future earthquakes and tsunami, but preparations are taking more time than expected, it said.

The submission of the documents could even be pushed back to October, Managing Executive Officer Akira Nakamura told reporters after attending a meeting of the Nuclear Regulation Authority in Tokyo in which he said the documents will not be ready for submission before September.

Kyushu Electric had planned to file the documents with the regulators at the end of May.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority is seeking technical comments from the public on its July 16 draft report, which effectively acknowledged the Sendai plant is safe enough in light of the new standards. The report is expected to be finalized after the month-long public consultation period through mid-August.

Before restarting the reactors, however, Kyushu Electric also needs to obtain consent from local communities and undergo on-site operational checks.

The Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at the seaside plant in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima, were suspended for routine checks after the March 2011 disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and they remain offline.

August 06, 2014(Mainichi Japan)