An inspection team from the International Atomic Energy Agency has told the Tokyo Electric Power Company to update its emergency manual at its idled Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant to reflect changes that have come about as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi accident of 2011. Otherwise, its initial feedback on the plant was predominantly positive. The IAEA said they had "identified a number of good practices," at the facility.
The directive came about after an IAEA team spent two weeks inspecting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which TEPCO would like to see put back into operations. The inspection, which came about at TEPCO’s invitation, was seen as a move by the utility company to have an impartial, international inspection team review the plant, given the point that the Fukushima accident, although the result of natural causes, undermined the public trust in TEPCO’s organization.
IAEA’s team is expected to send in a full report on the plant’s inspection in three months, The Japan Times reported. In the meantime, the IAEA said this week that TEPCO should upgrade its in-house manual to ensure “accident management guidance … [covers] all plant conditions.”
The watchdog agency said TEPCO should not rely on plant designers for information, but keep track of the status and changes in plant design themselves.
The plant’s manual should be “fully integrated and documented in a way that is clear and easy to use,” the IAEA said.
TEPCO managing director Takafumi Anegawa called the inspection beneficial, the Times reported.