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