The No. 2 reactor, front center, at the Shimane nuclear power plant in Matsue on April 12 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Chugoku Electric Power Co. announced on Oct. 28 that it has begun loading nuclear fuel into the No. 2 reactor of Shimane nuclear power plant in Matsue ahead of its planned restart later this year.
The process of loading the fuel is conducted around the clock and it will take around a week to add 560 fuel assemblies to the reactor.
This will mark the first time the No. 2 reactor has been refueled since operations were suspended at the end of January 2012, following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Chugoku Electric plans to reactivate the reactor in the first half of December with operations resuming at a later date.
Fuel loading is the process of placing bundles of cylindrical nuclear fuel assemblies into a reactor.
Chugoku Electric said it started the refueling process at 1 p.m. on Oct. 28, after gaining approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
If the refueling process is completed as scheduled, the company will proceed to carry out necessary inspections and tests, go through pre-operational confirmation conducted by the NRA and restart the reactor.
Commercial operations are scheduled to resume in early January of the following year.
The Shimane nuclear power plant houses boiling water reactors, which are the same type as those in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant that suffered meltdowns as a result of the 2011 disaster.
It is also the only nuclear power plant that is present in the capital city of any of Japan’s prefectures.
Tohoku Electric Power Co. is scheduled to restart the No. 2 reactor at the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture on Oct. 29, the first instance of a boiling water reactor resuming operations.
The Shimane nuclear power plant’s No. 2 reactor will follow as the second to reactivate.
If successful, this will be the first time that Chugoku Electric has operated a nuclear plant in roughly 13 years.
Source: The Asahi Shimbun
