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 on July 19 we accomplished the Step1 target "Radiation dose
is in steady decline". Then on December 16 we confirmed the
accomplishment of the Step 2 target "Release of radioactive materials is
under control and radiation doses are being significantly held down".
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 3:03 pm on December 20, we stopped the alternative cooling system of
the Spent Fuel Pool of Unit 2 due to inspections in the flow rate
detector of the system, This is scheduled to last until around 2:00 pm
of December 23 and during this time we are expecting that the
temperature of the spent fuel pool will rise by 21 °C ( temperature at
the time the we stopped the system: 15.4 °C).
*At 1:40 am on December 21, the alarm went off at the desalination
facility (reverse osmosis membrane type) 2-2 which showed that the
closing of the backwash water drain valve of the multimedia filter was
not conducted within the designated time, which led to an automatic
shutdown of the unit. We confirmed at the site that there was no water
leak. Since we have enough desalinated water this will not influence the
water injection. Desalination facility (reverse osmosis membrane type) 3
can be activated. We are now looking into details.
*At 5:05 am of December 21, decrease in water injection to the reactor of
unit 1 was confirmed and we adjusted water injection from the reactor
feed water system from approx 4.3 m3/h to 4.5 m3/h, and water injection
from the core spray system from approx. 1.8 m3/h to 2.0 m3/h.
·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 10:00 am, December 21, 2011) (PDF 239KB)
Appendix: Past Progress (From March 11, 2011 to July 31, 2011) (PDF 225KB)
* Revised past progress