Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is expected to submit a plan to restart two decommissioned nuclear power plants to the Nuclear Safety Commission by March next year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The ministry in a statement said that it has approved Taipower’s evaluation report, which found it was feasible to restart the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) and the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春).
However, the report concluded that restarting the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) was not feasible, because its two reactors were decommissioned more than eight years ago and its equipment has severely aged, the ministry said.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
Following the evaluation, Taipower would draft restart plans for the two nuclear power plants and launch safety inspections, including assessments of how badly the plants’ equipment has aged and their seismic resilience, it said.
Inspections at the Ma-anshan plant would require peer review and assistance from the original manufacturer, a process that is expected to take about one-and-a-half to two years to complete, the ministry added.
The process would take longer at the Guosheng plant, because its used nuclear fuel must be removed from the reactor and stored before safety inspections can be carried out, the ministry said.
The evaluation report was carried out in response to amendments to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) passed in May, which provide a legal basis for continuing to operate nuclear power plants even after they have entered the decommissioning stage.
The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant was shut down on May 17.
Taiwan’s three nuclear power plants, which generated about 15 percent of the nation’s electricity as recently as 2014, have all been decommissioned.
Nuclear power advocates have said the plants should be restarted and that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), which was close to completion before being mothballed in 2014, be opened and used to give Taiwan a source of low-emission electricity.
The Energy Administration said that for the first nine months of this year, about 85 percent of Taiwan’s electricity was generated by fossil fuels.
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