It will take time for the Nuclear Regulation Authority to verify the facts surrounding Chubu Electric Power’s data fraud, NRA Chair Shinsuke Yamanaka said Thursday. The meeting was held after Chubu Electric submitted an investigative committee report on the misconduct. During the meeting, the NRA’s secretariat said it will conduct additional reviews of how the company handled a whistleblower report about the data fraud involving its Hamaoka nuclear power plant.
Chubu Electric is suspected of underestimating possible earthquake ground motion in data submitted for the regulatory screening needed to restart the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. According to the investigative committee report, Chubu Electric had to include in its ground motion calculations faults that should be taken into account in NRA reviews. The resulting data exceeded the assumed levels and were unfavorable for the company, prompting it to cherry-pick data.
The misconduct was motivated by the desire to “avoid hindering the goal of restarting the plant,” the report said, adding that Chubu Electric sought to justify its actions while becoming increasingly dissatisfied with regulatory screenings.
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