Kansai Electric Power Company

Power plants

Kansai Electric Power Company has 164 plants with a total production capacity of 35,760 MW.

Business results

Over the business year 2011-2012, which ends in March, Kansai Electric Power Co. was expected to suffer a loss of 250 billion yen or more, because of the growing fuel cost for thermal power generation. In the business year 2009 the net loss was 8.7 billion yen.

Accidents and incidents

Mihama accident in 2004

On 9 August 2004, KEPCO reported that five of its employees were killed by a steam burst in the turbines housing building, at the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui Prefecture. The burst, according to KEPCO, was due to the neglect of mandated safety checks and there was no release of radioactivity.

2006

On 22 March 2006, in Ōi Nuclear Power Plant, at the waste incineration facility area, where ash is packed in steel barrels, a fire broke out. Two workers were admitted to a hospital after inhaling smoke, but not in critical condition. No radiation leakage was monitored.

2011 aftermath

The Kansai region is Japan's second-largest industrial area, and in normal times, its most nuclear-reliant. Before the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a band of 11 nuclear reactors – north of the major cities Osaka and Kyoto – supplied almost 50 percent of the region's power. But as of January 2012, only one of those reactors is still running. Meanwhile, power company employees are racing to reassure Japanese that plants are safe and necessary. In 2012, officials from Kansai Electric Power Co., "have gone door to door in towns that host its nuclear plants, conducting polls and answering questions".

Corruption scandal

Eiji Moriyama, the former deputy mayor of Takahama now deceased, was the primary "fixer" between Kepco and businesses in Takahama. Beginning as early as 1987, Moriyama was a conduit for funneling cash and gifts to Kepco officials in exchange for kickbacks and contracts to real estate and construction-related firms. Moriyama received "consulting fees" for his help.

The earliest indication of the corrupt relations between Kepco and local businesses appeared in a report from the taxation authorities, regarding unreported income on "idle lands". This was followed by a report in 2011 that Kepco had sold scrap metal to a local company at below market value.

In 2012 it was revealed that a member of the town assembly of Takahama, Fukui, Tomio Yamamoto, had received as president of the real estate company OHC Fukui, over 100 million yen for the rent of an unused factory over four years from 2006 to 2010 from a subsidiary of Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) The factory was used for storage, but the rent was unusually high, almost double the market price. The money was apparently paid in return for promoting nuclear power. In September 2010 an opinion statement to reactivate the nuclear reactors was proposed by Akio Awano, the vice speaker of the town assembly. Yamamoto and two other town assembly members did sign the proposal before it was submitted to the assembly.