Japan orders suspension of Tokai 2 nuclear power plant (1,060 MW)

The Mito District Court has ordered Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC) to suspend operations at the unit-2 of the Tokai-2 nuclear power plant in Japan’s Ibaraki prefecture, considering that the plant's safety measures (evacuation plan) were insufficient. The 1,060 MW boiling water reactor came onstream in November 1978 but has remained idle since 11 March 2011, when the earthquake forced the plant to automatically shut down. The Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) approved the restart of Tokai 2 in September 2018 after concluding that safety measures submitted by JAPC passed revised safety standards. The reactor was set to restart by December 2022.

Meanwhile, the Hiroshima High Court has allowed Shikoku Electric to restart the unit 3 of the Ikata nuclear power plant in Japan's Ehime prefecture, despite concerned raised by residents, overturning a temporary injunction against the reactor's operation. The Ikata-3 reactor, commissioned in 1994 in Ehime prefecture, was idled in 2011 after the Fukushima disaster. The Ehime Prefecture gave its approval for the restart of the reactor in October 2015, and the approval of the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) followed in March 2016. Shikoku Electric restarted the reactor in August 2016 but the company had to idle it for about a year in 2017 after a court decision and operations have been successively allowed and blocked since then. The reactor has been shut down for regulator maintenance since late December 2019.