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Japan's NRA approves decommissioning plan for Ohi 1 & 2 nuclear reactors

Kansai Electric’s decommissioning plan for units 1 and 2 of the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture has been approved by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). The decommissioning of the two reactors will take three decades. The decision to decommission the two units was announced in December 2017 on grounds that the overhaul works required to extend their operating life and implement safety upgrades would be too expensive and cost an estimated JPY830bn (US$7.6bn). In November 2018, Kansai Electric filed a detailed decommissioning plan to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), after seeking approval to decommission Ohi units 1 and 2 from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry in March 2018.

Ohi-1 and Ohi-2 are rated 1,120 MWe (1,175 MWe gross) each. They were put into service in 1979 and are nearing their standard operating life of 40 years. Both had been offline since the Fukushima disaster in March 2011 and they were removed from the list of Japanese commercial reactors on 1 March 2018. The Ohi nuclear power plant includes four pressurised water reactors (PWRs), all of which were shut down in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. In 2017, Kansai Electric secured the approval from the Fukui Prefecture and the NRA to restart Ohi-3 and Ohi-4. Both 1,120 MWe units 3 and 4 resumed commercial operations respectively in April and June 2018.

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