search



Corporate Information

 
Press Release (Dec 14,2011)
Status of TEPCO's Facilities and its services after the Tohoku-Chihou-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake (as of 9:00 am, December 14)
Due to the Tohoku-Chihou-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake which occurred on March 
11, 2011, TEPCO's facilities including our nuclear power stations have been 
severely damaged. We deeply apologize for the anxiety and inconvenience 
caused.
With regard to the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, 
on April 17, we have compiled the roadmap towards restoration from the 
accident and then we updated the progress status of roadmap considering 
the current situation, on July 19. Accomplishment of the Step1 target 
"Radiation dose is in steady decline" has been confirmed. On November 17, 
we updated the further progress. 
By bringing the reactors and spent fuel pools to a stable cooling condition 
and mitigating the release of radioactive materials, we will make every 
effort to enable evacuees to return to their homes and for all citizens to 
be able to secure a sound life.

Below is the status of TEPCO's major facilities.

* Updates since the previous press release underlined.

[Nuclear Power Station]
· Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station: Unit 1 to 3: shut down due to 
  the earthquake
    (Units 4 to 6: outage due to regular inspections)

  * At 10:00 am on December 13, we started to transfer the water 
    accumulated in the basement of Unit 6 Turbine Building to the 
    temporary tank. We stopped the transfer at 4:00pm on the same day.

  * Due to the reconstruction work of the residual heat removal system sea 
    water pump (B) of Unit 5, which had been out of order after the Tsunami, 
    from 6:29 am on December 14, we stopped cooling the reactor of Unit 5 
    by suspending the operation of the residual heat removal system pump 
    (B) and the residual heat removal system pump (D). The duration of 
    suspension will be approximately 10 hours and the temperature is 
    estimated to increase approximately 1.6 °C/h, which we assume will not 
    have a significant influence on the reactor core. (The temperature of 
    the reactor core at the time of suspension was 26.5 °C)

  * At 6:54 on December 14, an alarm went off indicating that there was a 
    significant gap in the flow rates at the inlet and the outlet of the 
    primary system pump of the spent fuel pool alternative cooling system 
    of Unit 2. There was no accident such as a leakage found at the site. 
    Later we implemented a vibration experiment on the instrumentation 
    piping and confirmed that the alarm has stopped. Hereafter, we will 
    check the flow rates every one hour. The spent fuel pool alternative 
    cooling system has been kept in operation without any trouble in 
    cooling.

· Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Station:
    Units 1 to 4: shutdown due to the earthquake

· Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Station: Units 5, 6: under normal 
  operation
    (Units 1 to 4 and 7: outage due to regular inspections)

[Thermal Power Station]
· Power supply has returned to normal and facilities damaged by the 
  earthquake are now being handled in a timely manner.

[Hydro Power Station]
· Power supply has returned to normal and facilities damaged by the 
  earthquake are now being handled in a timely manner.

[Impacts on Transmission Facilities]
· Power supply has returned to normal and facilities damaged by the 
  earthquake are now being handled in a timely manner.

[Impacts on Power Supply and Demand Balance]
This winter, there will be some minus factors such as the regular 
inspection of Unit 5 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station. On the 
other hand, there will be several plus factors such as the recovery of the 
common thermal power stations which suffered the earthquake. As a result, 
we expect to secure 54.9 GW (at the end of December), 54.6 GW (at the end 
of January), 53.7 GW (at the end of February) supply power. 
Compared to the maximum demand in the last winter, which is 51.5 GW, we 
will have 2.2 - 3.4 GW generation reserve margin.

We expect to maintain stable power supply this winter, however, as there 
remains possibilities of unplanned shutdowns at our power stations and 
growth in the demand according to the rapid change in the temperature, we 
would like to ask your reasonable effort to save electricity.

We will continue to make our efforts to maintain stable operation and 
maintenance of the power facilities in order to "prevent in principle" 
the planned blackouts and secure power supply.

Appendix: Past Progress (As of 9:00 am, December 14, 2011) (PDF 401KB)
Appendix: Past Progress (From March 11, 2011 to July 31, 2011) (PDF 225KB)

* Revised past progress


back to page top


to TOP