Japan will restart the world’s largest nuclear power plant next week after a technical alarm fault halted its first reboot since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
Takeyuki Inagaki, head of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), told reporters on Friday that the company plans to restart the reactor on 9 February.
TEPCO had brought the reactor back online on 21 January but shut it down the following day after a monitoring system triggered an alarm. Inagaki explained that a configuration error caused the system to detect minor changes in electrical current that remained within safe limits.
The company has since adjusted the alarm settings and confirmed that the reactor is safe to operate. Inagaki added that commercial operations will begin on or after 18 March, following another full inspection.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the largest nuclear power plant in the world by potential capacity, although TEPCO will restart only one of its seven reactors. The facility has remained offline since Japan suspended nuclear power generation after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Japan is now seeking to revive nuclear energy to cut dependence on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet rising energy demand driven by artificial intelligence. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the first TEPCO-operated plant to restart since 2011.
Opinion in the surrounding area remains divided. A survey conducted by Niigata prefecture in September showed that about 60 per cent of residents oppose the restart, while 37 per cent support it. In January, seven anti-nuclear groups submitted a petition signed by nearly 40,000 people, citing concerns that the plant sits on an active seismic fault zone and was affected by a strong earthquake in 2007.