MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Takahama NPP was shut down soon after the Fukushima NPP nuclear disaster in March 2011. Three of Takahama's nuclear reactors have been restarted so far.
"We hereby announce that Takahama Unit No.4…, which has been under the 20th periodic outage inspection since July 21, 2011, is expected to start up on May 17 and reach the criticality on May 18, 2017," the Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) said in a statement Tuesday.
The operator added that the unit was previously restarted in February 2016 and then automatically shut down three days later due to a glitch.
In March, Japan’s Osaka High Court revoked a lower court's order to temporarily shut down two reactors at the Takahama NPP after the KEPCO appealed the decision. The lawsuit was filed by the local residents, who claimed that the third and fourth of Takahamas’ reactors had been unsafe and that the security measures taken by the KEPCO were insufficient.
Concerns about the safety of nuclear facilities were raised after a 9.0-magnitude offshore earthquake triggered a huge tsunami wave in 2011. The wave crashed into Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing a meltdown.
After the accident, all of Japan’s nuclear reactors were idled, despite the fact that nuclear power provided for up to 40 percent of Japan’s energy needs at the time. Since August 2015, Japan’s authorities have made decisions to restart several plants, given the new security standards approved after the Fukushima disaster.
