TOKYO, Dec 7 - Japan's Chugoku Electric Power has restarted its Shimane nuclear power station in western Japan, which had been offline since shortly after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The No. 2 reactor, with a capacity of 820 megawatts (MW), resumed operations on Saturday, increasing the number of Japan's operational reactors to 14, with a total capacity of 13,253 MW.
The restart comes as Japan anticipates a decrease in demand for liquefied natural gas and thermal coal in the coming year. Tohoku Electric Power also recently resumed operations of its Onagawa nuclear power plant's No. 2 reactor, which has a capacity of 825 MW.
This increase in nuclear power generation is expected to meet the rising energy demands from sectors such as semiconductor manufacturing and data centres that support artificial intelligence. The Japanese government projects power output to rise to between 1.35 trillion and 1.5 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) by 2050, up from the current projection of 1 trillion kWh for this decade.
The Shimane reactor's restart follows an investment of 900 billion yen (approximately $6 billion) in safety upgrades to adhere to stricter regulations established after the Fukushima incident. Chugoku Electric anticipates an increase in recurring profits by 11 billion yen for the financial year ending in March, attributed to reduced fuel costs from lower fossil fuel expenditures.