Unit 3 of Japan's Ohi Nuclear Power Plant Automatically Shuts Down

Kansai Electric Power Co. announced in the early hours of the 9th that Unit 3 of the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant, located in Ohi Town, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, automatically shut down during operation. The unit has a generating capacity of 1.18 million kilowatts.

According to Kansai Electric Power, at around 23:56 on the 8th, an alarm was triggered at the unit, indicating that the generator had lost the conditions required to produce a magnetic field. Subsequently, the generator automatically stopped operating, and the reactor also automatically shut down. Preliminary information suggests that the anomaly may involve the exciter, a device used to establish the magnetic field for the generator.

Kansai Electric Power stated that no radioactive material leakage occurred as a result of this incident, and there was no radiological impact on nearby personnel or the environment. The cause of the malfunction is still under investigation. The company stated that no anomalies were found during routine inspections conducted at the unit in September last year.

Unit 3 of the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant entered commercial operation in 1991. It was shut down following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident and was restarted in 2018 under Japan's new regulatory standards. In May of this year, Unit 3 of the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant, operated by Kansai Electric Power in Mihama Town, Fukui Prefecture, experienced a steam leak and was subsequently manually shut down.