Japan's Tohoku Electric to shut 1 GW Haramachi coal-fired unit on glitch

Japan's Tohoku Eletric plans to shut the 1 GW No. 1 coal-fired unit at the Haramachi thermal power plant for repairs over Feb. 23-March 15 as a result of a facility glitch, the company said Feb. 17 in its filing to the Hatsuden Joho Kokai System, or HJKS.

Tohoku Electric's unexpected outage of the baseload 1 GW coal-fired power plant in the northeast of Japan came to light at a time when the country is still in the peak winter power demand season.

Given that Tohoku Electric is currently not generating nuclear power, the Sendai-based power utility will have to make up for the shortfall in baseload power generation from the LNG, oil, hydropower, renewables and electricity markets.

In a separate Feb. 17 filing to the HJKS, Tohoku Electric said it plans to shut the 600 MW No. 3 coal-fired unit at the Noshiro thermal power plant in the northwest over March 1-July 1 for scheduled maintenance.

LNG stocks held by Japan's major power utilities rebounded in the week to Feb. 13, rising 9.2% to 1.78 million mt from 1.63 million mt the week before, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Feb. 16, despite snowfall in Tokyo on Feb. 10.

Japan's LNG inventory last recorded a week-on-week increase on Dec. 23, 2021, when it peaked this winter at 2.42 million m, METI data showed.