TPT September 2013

Global Marketplace

plant operators applied for safety inspections by the Nuclear Regulation Authority for ten reactors at five plants supplying the regions of Hokkaido, Kansai, Shikoku and Kyushu. Applications for two reactors at another plant were expected later in the week. Only those reactors that pass inspection will be allowed to reopen – possibly early next year. Nearly all the Japanese utilities owning nuclear power plants reported huge losses in the last fiscal year due to higher costs for fuel imports. Hokkaido Electric Power Co, for example, said that three idled reactors were costing it $6mn daily. The nuclear operators have already requested rate hikes or intend to do so. › Germany’s ConergyAG has fallen victim to the global solar panel price war. The Hamburg-based company – which specialises in planning and installing photovoltaic systems – filed for insolvency on 5 July. It has some 1,200 employees. A recent government report found that about 24,000 jobs – more than a fifth of all jobs in Germany’s once-burgeoning solar panel industry – have been lost since 2011. Solar industry revenue in the country dropped to $9.53bn in 2012 from $15.3bn the year before. The report cited a fall in prices driven by cheap solar panels made in China.

Navigant believes that the time and expense required to license new reactor technology in the US is a primary reason why many industry stakeholders believe that initial SMR deployments will happen elsewhere: likely in China, which has one of the most advanced SMR development programmes in the world. › There are SMR deployment programmes currently underway in the US, and the market drivers may indeed surmount the barriers. But, with the power markets in the US having been radically changed by the development of shale gas, American nuclear operators are feeling the pressure. Dominion Resources cited unfavourable economics in the shutdown of its Kewaunee reactor in Wisconsin in May. And Duke Energy said in February that it would not restart Crystal River 3, in Florida. The deciding factor was the high cost of fixing mechanical problems at the plant. Of related interest . . . › Nearly two and a half years after the Fukushima disaster, and with all but two of the 50 nuclear reactors in Japan off line since the crisis, Japanese utility companies have moved closer to restarting the reactors that once supplied about a third of the nation’s power. On 7 July, when new, stricter (and now compulsory) safety requirements took effect, four of the nine Japanese nuclear

Dorothy Fabian, Features Editor (USA)

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September 2013