Japan's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant resumes power transmission

TOKYO -- Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has resumed power generation and transmission to the grid from its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture, central Japan.

The No 6 reactor at the plant, which was restarted earlier this year, began sending electricity to the Tokyo metropolitan area at 10 pm local time on Monday for the first time in about 14 years since Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power following the March 2011 core meltdowns at TEPCO's tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant.

TEPCO plans to increase the 1.35-million-kilowatt reactor output to 50 percent before temporarily halting it on Friday or later to test the power-generation equipment. If progress continues as expected, the utility plans to raise output to 100 percent and resume commercial operations on March 18.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, about 220 km northwest of Tokyo, is the world's biggest nuclear power plant by potential capacity. The restart of the No 6 reactor at the seven-unit complex marked the first TEPCO-run unit to go back online since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which has met local opposition amid criticism that the plant sits on an active seismic fault zone.