The world’s largest nuclear power plant is restarted and then shut down the next day after an alarm goes off

Japan’s electric utility TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) shut down the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (KK) nuclear power plant on Thursday, the largest in the world by capacity, after detecting an alarm in the control rod monitoring system, according to EFE.

In a statement, the company said: “During the operation to withdraw the control rods, an alarm was triggered in the monitoring system for one of the control rods, and the operation was suspended.”

TEPCO attempted to resolve the issue by replacing electrical components in the panel that operates the control rods. However, when the alarm persisted, the company decided to launch an investigation.

“The plant is in stable condition and there is no radiological impact outside the facility,” the company said, adding that the reactor will remain shut down while the cause of the incident is investigated.

The plant will remain closed

In a separate statement, TEPCO noted that the investigation will take time, so the plant will remain temporarily closed until the source of the problem is identified.

It is worth recalling that in 2011 the company was forced to shut down a plant following a nuclear accident. This past December, the restart of reactor number 6 was approved after Japan’s nuclear regulator authorized the operation of two of the seven reactors at the complex.

Originally, reactors 6 and 7 were scheduled to restart in 2017, but the plant chose to keep them offline due to deficiencies in security systems designed to protect against potential terrorist attacks.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is strategically important for TEPCO’s energy supply, as it has a total generating capacity of 8,000 megawatts.

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