Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) announced on Sunday that the No. 6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture has resumed electricity generation and resumed power transmission to the Tokyo metropolitan area.
The resumption followed Tepco's completion of replacing a damaged component that had caused the suspension of power generation and transmission a day earlier. The company now aims to initiate commercial operation of the reactor as early as April.
According to Tepco, an alarm signaling a minor electricity leak from the reactor's generator was triggered on the evening of March 12. After reducing the reactor's output to approximately 20%, Tepco halted power transmission to investigate the issue.
Subsequent checks revealed that a part responsible for detecting electricity leaks had been damaged by vibrations from the generator. Tepco replaced the faulty component with one more resistant to vibrations. No actual electricity leak was confirmed during the inspection.
Tepco restarted the power generation equipment at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday and, after confirming no abnormalities, reconnected the reactor to the power transmission network at 2 p.m.
The reactor is expected to increase its output to 100% within about a week and will proceed to commercial operation pending a final inspection and approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
