Kyushu Electric has stopped the 890 MW unit 1 of its Sendai nuclear power plant in the Kagoshima prefecture in southern Japan, due to delays in meeting the new regulations on back-up safety measures. In addition, the company will have to shut down Sendai 2 in May 2020.
In July 2013, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approved new regulations in response to the Fukushima disaster, and required bunkered back-up control centres at nuclear power plants. In November 2015, it mandated reactors' operators to complete these facilities within 5 years after the approval of each plant's engineering and construction work programme. Operators failing to complete back-up centres about a week before the deadline are required to suspend operations at the reactor and to place the unit in cold shutdown. Kyushu Electric had until 18 March 2020 and 22 May 2020 to complete the back-up control centres at Sendai-1 and Sendai-2 but failed to meet the deadline.
So far, nine of the 39 operable nuclear reactors have cleared safety standards inspections and have resumed power operations, including Kyushu Electric's Sendai 1 and 2 reactors and Kansai Electric's Takahama 3 and 4 reactors. Under the new regulations, Kansai Electric has until August 2020 for Takahama-3. Both utilities have already warned the NRA that construction would be delayed by about one year. Other utilities will also experiment up to 2.5 years of delays. They could then be forced to stop operations again.
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