Tokyo Electric Expects Power Supplies to Meet Summer Demand

In its business plan for fiscal 2008 starting in April, the power utility said that it expects to supply up to 64.7 million kilowatts in August, the month of peak summer demand, 6 pct higher than the maximum demand estimate of 61.1 million kilowatts.

The company excluded the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture from the whole business plan, as the plant has been inactive since it was damaged by a powerful earthquake in July last year.

Tokyo Electric Vice President Masataka Shimizu said that the company cannot tell at the moment when the plant will resume power generation.

Tokyo Electric, which serves Tokyo and other prefectures in the "Kanto" eastern Japan region as well as some portions of central Japan, cut its power supplies to industrial users last summer for the first time in 17 years, due to the operational halt of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

Compared with a year before, the company will increase power supplies by 2.5 million kilowatts this summer by putting new thermal power plants in service in July and restarting halted thermal plant operations.

The company also projects an additional supply of 3.7 million kilowatts from running its two nuclear reactors in Fukushima Prefecture at full capacity.

On its power station development programs, Tokyo Electric said it will put off by one year the operational launches of all its planned nuclear power plants, including Higashidori plant in Aomori Prefecture, in order to place priority on securing earthquake safety at its existing facilities.

Meanwhile, it will bring the schedule forward for the construction and operational starts of its planned thermal plants, including those in Kanagawa and Ibaraki Prefectures.END