Hokkaido Thermal Plant to Resume Operations as Early as Tuesday

September 17, 2018

Sapporo- Hokkaido Electric Power Co. said Monday that the No. 1 unit at its major thermal power plant will resume operations as early as Tuesday or Wednesday, earlier than previously expected.

The 350,000-kilowatt No. 1 unit will be the first to resume operations at the Tomato-Atsuma thermal plant, whose three generators were shut down following a powerful earthquake that struck the northern Japan prefecture of Hokkaido on Sept. 6.

Previously, the company said that the No. 1 unit was unlikely to resume operations at least until late this month.

The decision to move forward the resumption reflected smooth progress in boiler tube repairs, the company said.

The coal-fired Tomato-Atsuma plant, the largest thermal power station in Hokkaido with a total output capacity of 1.65 million kilowatts, supplies about half of the prefecture's electricity. Its shutdown left all 2.95 million households in the region without power.

There is no change in the timetable about when the other two generators at the Tomato-Atsuma plant will be brought back into operation, the company said. The 600,000-kilowatt No. 2 unit will be back in mid-October or later, and the 700,000-kilowatt No. 4 unit will be online in November or later.

Hokkaido Electric late last week withdrew its call for businesses and households to cut 20 pct of electricity use, after putting back online two generators at its Kyogoku pumped hydroelectric power plant.

But the company, still struggling to secure a sufficient amount of excess supply capacity, is calling on clients to save electricity as much as possible.

The company is now capable of supplying 3.56 million kilowatts of electricity, only slightly above an estimated demand of 3.45 million kilowatts, a number that takes power-savings into account. Jiji Press