Previously, such facilities were required to be installed within five years (a grace period) from the approval of a plant\u2019s construction plan. Under the revised rule, however, the deadline will be changed to within five years from the start of commercial operation of the nuclear power plant. The revision will apply only to plants that have not yet reached the installation deadline under the current regulations.<\/p>\n
As a result, the deadline for installing the facility at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Unit 6<\/span><\/span>\u2014scheduled to begin commercial operation on April 16, 2026\u2014will be extended from September 2029 to April 2031. In contrast, Unit 7, whose deadline (October 13, 2025) has already passed, will not be eligible for the extension.<\/p>\n These facilities are specifically designed as countermeasures against terrorist attacks, intended to mitigate the release of radioactive materials in scenarios such as deliberate acts that could lead to core damage. The initial grace period for installation was set at five years when the new regulatory standards were introduced in 2013. Following a regulatory revision in 2016, the starting point for this period was shifted from the enforcement date of the new standards to the date of approval of each plant\u2019s design and construction plan, while the five-year grace period itself remained unchanged.<\/p>\n At a regular press conference on February 18, Yamanaka noted that nearly ten years have passed since the system was introduced. Based on a review of 12 units where such facilities have been completed, he pointed out that very few were actually finished within the five-year timeframe, indicating the need to reconsider the framework of the grace period itself.<\/p>\n Explaining the rationale behind the decision, Yamanaka emphasized that \u201cthis revision is not a simple extension, but an optimization of regulatory effectiveness based on ten years of operational experience.\u201d He added that \u201cif regulations diverge from on-site realities and become unachievable, they cannot function effectively as regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n He further explained that the framework has been revised from one based on the approval of installation to one based on pre-operational inspections, thereby maintaining the level of safety measures while establishing a more realistic system that ensures the completion of facilities.<\/p>\n When asked by reporters why facilities that had already exceeded their deadlines were excluded from the revision, Yamanaka responded that \u201cthe rule change was not made to accommodate specific facilities, but based on overall performance.\u201d He added that for facilities already past their deadlines, priority will be placed on construction, and the stance of requiring prompt installation remains unchanged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Previously, such facilities were required to be installed within five years (a grace period) from the approval of a plant\u2019s construction plan. Under the revised rule, however, the deadline will be changed to within five years from the start of commercial operation of the nuclear power plant. The revision will apply only to plants that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[696,403,404,662,863,19,314,865],"class_list":["post-7786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-npps","tag-anti-terrorism-measures","tag-kashiwazaki-kariwa-6","tag-kashiwazaki-kariwa-7","tag-new-regulatory-standards","tag-npp","tag-nra","tag-severe-accidents","tag-yamanaka"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7788,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7786\/revisions\/7788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaif.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}