Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) said it plans to restart a reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP in Niigata Prefecture in the fiscal year 2025. According to changes made to Tepco’s business plan, approved by the government the same day, the restart of the reactor is expected to boost its earnings by around JPY100bn ($672 m) a year.
Tepco had sought to carry out a drastic review of its business plan in the current fiscal year, but the latest changes were provisional as it is still unclear when the company will be able to gain approval to bring the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant back online.
According to a newly released earnings forecast, Tepco and its four core subsidiaries are expected to post a net profit of JPY57.2bn in the current fiscal year ending this month. This compares with a net profit projection of PY113.7bn in the year ending March 2026, when the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is expected to be restarted.
Although Kashiwazaki-Kariwa was unaffected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami all seven of the plant’s reactors had been offline for two to three years following the earlier 2007 Niigata-Chuetsu earthquake, which caused damage to the site. Work has since been carried out to improve the plant’s earthquake resistance.
Tepco applied for Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approval of its design and construction plan for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa units 6&7 (1,356 MWe advanced boiling water reactors) in September 2013. These were the first Japanese boiling water reactors to be considered for restart after all Japan’s reactors were shut down in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
NRA cleared safety screenings for the two units in 2017 but security breaches and problems in completing safety upgrades caused delays. NRA prohibited the transportation or loading of reactor fuel stored at the plant in April 2021 due to insufficient counter-terrorism measures, ordering Tepco to take corrective action. In January 2024, NRA confirmed that those measures had been taken and preparations for restart continued.
In April 2024, the mayor of Kashiwazaki in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture indicated his willingness to approve the restart of two reactors (units 6&7) at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP. “We have reached a stage where we can accept a possible request for reactivation,” Masahiro Sakurai said during a meeting with Tepco President Tomoaki Kobayakawa. According to Jiji press, Kobayakawa formally told the mayor of Tepco’s plans to decide on possible decommissioning of some of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s units 1-5 two years after the restart of units 6&7.
Earlier the same month, Tepco began loading nuclear fuel into the reactor at unit 7 the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after NRA granted approval. However, two days later, Tepco suspended fuel loading because of an equipment problem, NHK reported. Tepco said in a statement that there were no safety-related issues but no further details were provided.
