Chugoku Electric Power has said it expected to restart unit 2 at its Shimane NPP in Matsue in Shimane Prefecture in early December. Chugoku said it had revised the date for fuel loading to 28 October “for pre-operational confirmation in relation to an operator’s pre-operational inspections to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) for the restart of commercial operation of Shimane unit 2.
Assuming that the start of fuel loading and the progress of inspections go as planned, Chugoku has scheduled start-up of the reactor for early December and restart of the unit for late December, with commercial operation expected to begin in early January 2025.
“We will continue to take all possible measures to ensure the operator’s pre-operational inspections proceed steadily with safety as our first priority as well as to respond appropriately to the pre-operational confirmation conducted by the NRA, and we will prepare each and every step toward the restart,” Chugoku said.
The 820 MWe unit, which started operations in 1989, is a boiling-water reactor (BWR), the same type as the reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings’ Fukushima Daiichi NPP, which suffered a triple meltdown following the Great East Japan Earthquake. It will be the second BWR to restart, following the planned operation in November of unit 2 at Tohoku Electric Power Co’s Onagawa plant in Miyagi Prefecture.
Shimane 2 was set to resume in August, but this was postponed because of required safety upgrade work. In 2021, the NRA approved a draft report finding that Shimane 2 meets the revised regulatory standards. Following approvals by the cities of Matsue, Izumo, Yasugi and Unnan, in June 2022 the governor of Shimane prefecture approved the restart of the unit. Shimane 2 was the 17th Japanese reactor to pass NRA’s safety screenings and the fifth to receive regulatory approval to restart.
Shimane unit 1 – a 460 MWe BWR that started commercial operation in March 1974 – is now being decommissioned. However, Chugoku has initiated the regulatory process for starting up Shimane 3, a new 1,373 MWe advanced boiling water reactor, which is nearing completion.
To date, following the closure of all of Japan’s reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, 24 have already been decommissioned. Of the 27 that have undergone safety screenings, the restart of 17 has been approved, 12 of which have already resumed operations – all pressurised water reactors. The remaining five are preparing to resume operations after improving safety measures. The screenings of 10 reactors are still ongoing.
