The reactor is expected to resume commercial operation on January 10, 2025, after the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) issues a pre-operational certificate, marking the plant’s return to operation for the first time since it stopped owing to regular inspections that began in January 2012.
Shimane-2 is Japan’s 14th NPP to resume operation ever since the country’s new regulatory standards came into effect in 2013, and the second boiling water reactor (BWR) to do so, following Onagawa-2, owned and operated by the Tohoku Electric Power Co., which restarted on November 15.
Shimane-2, located in western Japan, had continued to operate even after the giant earthquake (known officially as the Great East Japan Earthquake) that struck eastern Japan in March 2011, but it was shut down in January 2012 when it entered regular inspections, as mentioned already. Subsequently, in December 2013, Chugoku Electric submitted an application for a review in accordance with the new regulatory standards.
In September 2021, after receiving approval for making a modification to the reactor’s installation, the power company restarted Shimane-2 earlier this month (on December 7, 2024), with the approval of the local community.
After the resumption of power generation at Shimane-2, Chugoku Electric President NAKAGAWA Kengo expressed his gratitude to all those concerned as well as to the local community. He also stressed the significance of the event, saying, “It is essential to support the stable supply of electricity, especially in the Chugoku region [in western Honshu, including Hiroshima], as well as to achieve carbon neutrality and stabilize electricity prices.”
In addition, he reiterated the company’s mission, as an electricity supplier, to provide a stable supply of low-cost electricity with minimal environmental impact and expressed his commitment to steadily confirm the integrity of the facilities so that commercial operations could resume with a sense of urgency and stable operations be continued henceforth.
