24 Apr (NucNet): Kyushu Electric Power Company, operator of the two-unit Sendai nuclear station in Kagoshima prefecture, southern Japan, plans to load fuel assemblies into Sendai-1 in June and restart the reactor in July, with normal commercial operation scheduled for August, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (Jaif) said today.
If the reactor does restart this summer, it will be the first to do so since all of Japan’s 48 units were shut down for safety checks and upgrades following the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi accident.
Earlier this week a court in Kagoshima rejected a legal bid to prevent the restart of Sendai on safety grounds, paving the way for the two reactors to resume commercial operation.
Last month Japan’s nuclear regulator, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), began a pre-service inspection of Sendai-1, the first such inspection carried out under new laws to make sure reactors meet safety standards introduced following Fukushima-Daiichi, Jaif said.
The inspection is the last step in an approval process before the reactor can restart, Jaif said.
In November 2014 the governor of Kagoshima approved the restart of Sendai-1 and -2 after they became the first in the country to meet the post-Fukushima safety standards.
Both Sendai units are 846-megawatt pressurised water reactors. Sendai-1 began commercial operation in 1984 and Sendai-2 in 1985.
