Uncertainty over restart remains because of litigation with local residents
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has approved a safety screening report that says Hokkaido Electric’s Tomari-3 nuclear power plant – the newest in the country – meets the country’s safety standards.
Tomari-3, on the island of Hokkaido in northern Japan, is the first commercial nuclear plant in Japan to have won such approval since Chugoku Electric Power’s Shimane-2, which passed a safety screening in 2021.
The approval follows the April approval by the NRA of a draft screening report. The NRA said at the time that the report was expected to be formally adopted this summer following a period for public comments.
Tomari-3, an 866-MW pressurised water reactor unit which began commercial operation in 2009, is the 18th nuclear plant to pass safety screening since the current safety standards were adopted following the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
The NRA screened the plant for an unusually long period of 12 years because it took time for Hokkaido Electric to explain its measures to deal with possible earthquakes and tsunamis, reports said.
The reports also said the company is still in litigation with local residents because it has appealed a court order not to operate the plant issued in 2022. It remains uncertain whether the company can restart the reactor in 2027 as planned, given that it needs to obtain agreements from local governments.
Hokkaido Electric applied for the safety screening on the day the current safety standards took effect in July 2013.
The company has raised the maximum seismic ground motion assumed in its quake resistance design from 550 gals to 693 gals and the assumed maximum tsunami height from 7.3 metres to 17.8 metres.
The company is building a seawall 19 metres tall with plans to complete it by around March 2027. It has also presented plans to build a new port to the north of the plant and establish a new transportation route dedicated to nuclear fuel. This is because of the possibility that a nuclear fuel transportation ship might collide with the seawall due to tsunamis.
Hokkaido Electric estimates that the reactor’s safety measures will cost at least ¥515 billion (€3bn, $3.47bn). It aims to restart the station’s remaining two reactors, Units 1 and 2, in the first half of the 2030s.
All three units have been offline since Unit 3 stopped power generation for regular inspection in 2012.
Before the Fukushima disaster Japan’s fleet of 54 nuclear plants generated about 30% of the country’s electricity, but were all shut down for safety checks following the accident. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the figure for 2023, was 5.5%, but the government wants to see this climb to 20%.
Among the 33 operable nuclear reactors in Japan, 14 have now resumed operations after meeting post-Fukushima safety standards.
The restarted plants are: Sendai-1 and -2, Genkai-3 and -4, Ikata-3, Mihama-3, Ohi-3 and -4, Onagawa-2, Shimane-2 and Takahama-1, -2, -3 and -4.
