Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said Wednesday that the Ikata Power Station's Unit 3 reactor operated by the Shikoku Electric Power Company had completed the three-step conformity review, which included permission for changing the reactor installation license (done last year), approval for construction works, which came in March, and approval of operational safety programs.
In March, the company's board of directors announced they would not restart Ikata Unit 1, which reportedly would have cost $1.5 billion to refurbish to meet the new post-Fukushima Daiichi safety standards. The 538-MWe pressurized water reactor (PWR) would have been due for a 20-year license extension by September 2017, when its first 40-year license would have expired.
The 846 MWe Unit 3, however, now requires only final on site operational inspection for before restarting. That would make it the fifth restart since the country's post-Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power moratorium shuttered all of Japan's nuclear power plants.
Meanwhile, the World Nuclear Association (WNA) reported this week that the NRA had confirmed that Units 1 and 2 at the Takahama generating station have meet the new safety standards, despite their ages, which are both over 40 years. Startups dates there have not been announced. The Japan Atomic Energy Commission and the Ministry of the Economy must confirm the NRA's approvals, the WNA said.
Unit 3 at the Takahama plant in Fukui prefecture was started up in late January, but shut down after a district court issued an injunction based on safety concerns in a ruling made on behalf of local citizens. Unit 4 at the plant operated by the Kansai Electric Power Company was restarted 26 February, but that reactor shut itself down three days later after restart, due to a “main transformer/generator internal failure,” the company said. It has remained off line since 29 February.