Kansai Electric wants mothballed unit restarted by summer

Kansai Electric wants to restart the 450 megawatt No.2 oil-fired unit at its Kainan plant in western Japan by next summer.

This is one of the company's remedies to improve tight supply conditions due to a loss of nuclear power.

The No.2 Kainan oil-fired unit, which began operation in 1970, stopped generation 10 years ago, Japan's second-biggest utility said in a statement.

The move could be followed by similar restarts of Kansai's other mothballed non-nuclear units to meet demand next summer.

Kansai Electric, which before the radiation crisis at Fukushima Daiichi plant triggered by the March 11 earthquake relied on reactors for more than 40 percent of its power generation, has said it will barely meet demand this winter and is asking users to voluntarily cut peak-hour power usage by 10 percent.

Kansai Electric has submitted results of newly required stress tests on two of its 11 reactors to the country's nuclear watchdog, the initial step to obtaining permission to restart them in the face of public safety fears.

Without approval for restarts by the central and local governments, all of its 11 reactors could become idle by Dec. 18, when the last online reactor is due to enter regular maintenance.

Separately, Kansai Electric said it has decided to build two solar power plants in Fukui prefecture, where all of its 11 nuclear reactors are located, with total capacity of 1 MW, by March 2015.

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