Chubu Electric Finds Improper Billing in N-Reactor Decommissioning

Nagoya, Aug. 27 (Jiji Press)–Chubu Electric Power Co. has improperly billed costs for decommissioning the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, for fiscal 2024, company officials said Thursday. The related costs were invoiced to the Nuclear Reprocessing and Decommissioning Facilitation Organization, which oversees decommissioning work for nuclear reactors in Japan. Chubu Electric found 14 cases of improper billing for construction costs related to the reactor decommissioning work for the fiscal year that ended in March 2025, the officials said. Workers altered records on dismantled equipment, including its weight, written in the decommissioning report from a subcontractor to include information that did not match the facts, the officials said. There were also cases in which seals were affixed to documents without authorization, they said. The Chubu Electric officials said the company is still investigating exact reasons for the misconduct, but that some employees have said they wanted the records to match the work plan. Of the about 1.1 billion yen Chubu Electric received from the Nuclear Reprocessing and Decommissioning Facilitation Organization for the fiscal 2024 decommissioning work, some 800 million yen was obtained as a result of improper billing, according to the company’s estimate. At a press conference in Nagoya, a city in central Japan where Chubu Electric is based, company officials apologized for the misconduct. The industry ministry told the company to submit a report on the matter. Electric power companies that own nuclear power plants pay decommissioning contributions to the organization. After the work is done, they claim costs from the organization. The Hamaoka No. 1 and No. 2 reactors were taken offline in January 2009. Chubu Electric expects to complete decommissioning work for them in fiscal 2042. Separately, Chubu Electric had allegedly cherry-picked data on projected earthquake shaking during screening for the restart of the Hamaoka plant’s No. 3 and No. 4 reactors. An investigative committee of external lawyers is probing the matter. The Nuclear Regulation Authority is also conducting an inspection. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]