Delayed Safety Verification of Shinhanul Unit 1... Will the Operation Start Be Postponed Again?

Extension of PAR Report Submission Deadline... From June to This Month
Conditional Operation Approval Last Year... Recently Entered Final Test Run
Government Plan Setback Inevitable... Operation Start Delayed by 5 Years

A view of Shin Hanul Units 1 and 2 located in Uljin, Gyeongbuk.
Photo by Asia Economy DB

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Lee Junhyung] The safety verification of Shin Hanul Unit 1 is being postponed repeatedly. The scheduled commercial operation date of Shin Hanul Unit 1 next month is also expected to be delayed.

According to related ministries on the 14th, the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) amended and approved the "Shin Hanul Unit 1 Operating License Condition Change Plan" at its 162nd meeting on the 11th. The core of the change plan is the deadline for Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) to submit the final report on the Shin Hanul Unit 1 Passive Autocatalytic Recombiners (PAR). The NSSC extended the report submission deadline by two months, from June to the end of this month.

PAR is a device that absorbs hydrogen inside a nuclear power plant. In the event of disasters such as earthquakes, it controls the hydrogen concentration to reduce the possibility of a nuclear power plant explosion. A representative case of a major accident caused by failure to remove hydrogen is the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan. As such, PAR is a critical safety device necessary to prevent nuclear power plant accidents.

Accordingly, the NSSC conditionally approved the operation of Shin Hanul Unit 1 in July last year, requiring proof of PAR safety. This was based on the judgment that thorough safety verification is necessary since PAR is a device that can prevent major nuclear power plant accidents. The original deadline set by the NSSC for KHNP was last March. However, KHNP failed to submit the report by May, more than two months past the deadline, and requested the NSSC to extend the deadline by one month. The reason given was delays in related schedules such as PAR safety experiments being conducted at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI).

The problem is that KHNP has already failed to meet the previously extended deadline once. Recently, KHNP requested the NSSC to extend the final report submission schedule by four months, from June to October, citing additional experiments. However, at the 162nd meeting, the NSSC extended the deadline but fixed the submission date to this month. There is a possibility that the NSSC may further extend the report submission deadline depending on future schedules.

With the safety verification of Shin Hanul Unit 1 being delayed again, government plans are also expected to face setbacks. Originally, the government planned to fully operate Shin Hanul Unit 1 within next month. Accordingly, Shin Hanul Unit 1 connected to the power grid last month and entered the fifth stage of commissioning, the final phase of trial operation. However, the scheduled operation date next month was based on the assumption that the PAR safety verification would be completed by June.

The operation date of Shin Hanul Unit 1 has already been delayed by more than five years compared to the government's initial plan. Shin Hanul Unit 1, which began construction in April 2010, was scheduled to start commercial operation in April 2017. However, under the Moon Jae-in administration, the construction schedule was delayed due to safety evaluations and quality enhancements, and the plant was completed in April 2020, three years later than planned.