Chubu Electric Power Co halted plans to restart an atomic power plant in central Japan after an independent committee ruled the company acted inappropriately when submitting earthquake-safety data.
The utility’s two most senior executives also stepped down on Monday after the committee made public the findings of a months-long investigation into proposals related to the Hamaoka plant. President Kingo Hayashi and Chairman Satoru Katsuno announced their resignations at a news conference in the city of Nagoya.
The withdrawal of Chubu’s application to restart the No 3 and No 4 reactors at Hamaoka deals a fresh blow to Japan’s attempts to revitalize its atomic power sector, which is still recovering after the country shut all of its reactors in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
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About half of Japan’s commercially available reactors have since restarted, with data centers driving increased electricity demand, but confidence in the sector remains fragile and some projects have run into trouble. Earlier this month, the country’s nuclear regulator rejected safety measures proposed by the owner of Hokkaido’s only facility.
Chubu Electric, which supplies power to several prefectures across central Japan, first disclosed possible misconduct to the regulator in January, saying it had established an independent panel of experts to probe the selection of seismic data – a key consideration in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries.
That panel’s verdict, delivered publicly during a separate media briefing on Monday, confirmed that the company had acted inappropriately. Japanese broadcaster NHK first reported the news last week.
The issue “puts the Hamaoka nuclear plant to the back of the queue in terms of potential restarts,” said Llewellyn Hughes, director of the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University. The plant already faced challenges, both technical and in terms of local consent, he added.
Chubu Electric has no other nuclear reactors in operation. Minoru Yasui will replace Hayashi as the company’s president, Chubu said in a statement.
