Japan restarts Takahama 3 and 4 reactors to reach 5 operational nuclear reactors

Unit 3 of the Takahama nuclear power plant in Japan's Fukui prefecture was restarted on June 6, 2017, plant owner Kansai Electric Power Company has announced. Takahama 4 - which had also been kept offline since March 2016 by a court injunction - was restarted last month, joining three other reactors in operation.

Kansai said the 830 MWe (net) pressurised water reactor (PWR) was restarted at 2.00pm today and is expected to achieve criticality tomorrow. The company plans to resume electricity generation at Takahama 3 and reconnect it to the grid on 9 June "as the final stage of the periodic outage inspection following various types of tests". It added that "full-scale operation" of the unit will resume in early July after completion of the comprehensive inspection performed by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA).

Three other Japanese reactors are currently in operation: Kyushu Electric's Sendai units 1 and 2 and Shikoku Electric's Ikata unit 3. Another 19 have applied to restart.