TEPCO to Reset Start of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Commercial Operation

Tokyo, Jan. 29 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. will reconsider the start date for the commercial operation of the No. 6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, the plant’s head, Takeyuki Inagaki, said Thursday. In the evening on Jan. 21, the reactor was restarted for the first time in 13 years and 10 months. But after midnight, an alarm was triggered, indicating a power system failure in equipment that moves reactor control rods. As replacing parts did not resolve the problem, the reactor was brought to a cold shutdown on Friday. TEPCO had initially planned to start the reactor’s commercial operation on Feb. 26. Inagaki said at his regular press conference that the company will release the results of an investigation into the problem in the “not-so-distant future.” At a separate press conference the same day, TEPCO Representative Executive Vice President Hiroyuki Yamaguchi said that a delay in the reactor’s commercial operation is not expected to affect the company’s earnings. On Thursday, TEPCO reported a consolidated net loss of 662.6 billion yen for April-December 2025, against a profit of 243.1 billion yen a year before. This was the second-worst figure on record for the first nine months of a fiscal year, reflecting a special loss of over 900 billion yen related to decommissioning work at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. TEPCO also said that its April-December revenues decreased 7.1 pct to 4,612.1 billion yen, while its operating profit dropped 16.9 pct to 258.4 billion yen. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]