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The order was the first of its kind issued to a commercially operated nuclear facility in
The company has seen restarting the seven-reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex, once one of the world's largest nuclear plants by output, as a main pillar of its business restructuring plan.
The plant was found to have been vulnerable to unauthorized entry at 15 locations since March last year because of defective intruder detection systems and backups, according to the NRA. It is the first time the regulator has issued a corrective order for a commercial nuclear reactor.
The punitive measure is expected to remain for more than a year until the authority concludes additional inspections. Although the plant's Nos. 6-7 reactors cleared safety screenings by the regulator in 2017, all seven reactors remain idle.
The delay in resuming the plant's operation would be a setback for the central government's push to restart more nuclear plants to cut greenhouse gas emissions while a shift to weather-dependent renewable power generation is promoted.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant has been plagued by security issues, including an incident in which an employee used a colleague's ID pass last September to enter the central control room without authorization.
The NRA also gave a warning Wednesday to the top three officials of its secretariat for failing to report the ID mishandling to the NRA even though they had been informed about it the day after the incident.
==Kyodo
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