Hokkaido business groups demand early Tomari restart as Japan's nuclear calculus tightens
Eight Hokkaido economic organizations are pressing for an early restart of the Tomari plant, testing Japan's post-Fukushima nuclear recovery against rising power costs.
Eight economic organizations in Hokkaido submitted a joint request on Friday (2026-08-21) calling for the early restart of the Tomari Nuclear Power Plant and a reduction in electricity rates. The Hokkaido Economic Federation's chairman said nuclear power is indispensable for decarbonization and curbing electricity costs.4
The request lands as Japan's broader nuclear revival continues to move at an uneven pace. Fifteen years after the Fukushima disaster, the country's fleet remains far below its pre-2011 scale, when 54 operational reactors supplied roughly 25% of electricity and the government targeted expansion to around 50% by 2030.1
Tomari is Hokkaido's only nuclear station, and its three units have been idle since the Fukushima accident triggered nationwide shutdowns. For a northern island heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels for winter power, the restart question carries outsized weight, particularly as LNG costs remain elevated.1
The timing is no accident. Japan's latest energy plan, released last year, sets a target for renewables to account for 40% to 50% of generation by 2040, up from roughly 25% currently. But that ambition does not resolve the near-term gap, and business groups on the island are signaling that nuclear capacity must fill it.1
The economics of restarting Tomari are complicated by Japan's liberalized power market. Utilities that restart reactors have faced political pressure on pricing, and the Hokkaido groups' demand for rate reductions suggests they expect the plant's low marginal cost to translate into lower bills. Whether that happens depends on how Hokkaido Electric structures its post-restart tariffs.4
Independent analysis suggests Japan could lean harder on renewables. Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimate that renewables could reliably generate 70% of electricity by 2035, a figure that would reduce the urgency of nuclear restarts on decarbonization grounds alone.1
But system reliability is a different question. Hokkaido's grid connectivity to the main island of Honshu is limited, and the region's harsh winters create sharp seasonal demand peaks. A similar constraint is visible in another Japanese renewables project: an 80 MW onshore wind farm in Ibaraki Prefecture will be capped at 60 MW due to limited grid connectivity.3
The push from Hokkaido business groups reflects a growing willingness among Japanese corporate leaders to publicly back nuclear power. That marks a shift from the decade after Fukushima, when nuclear advocacy was politically toxic. The federation chairman's explicit framing of nuclear as indispensable for both decarbonization and cost control suggests the debate has moved from safety to economics.4
Japan's nuclear regulator has yet to approve Tomari's restart, and the timeline remains uncertain. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world's largest, has also faced repeated delays in its own restart process, underscoring how slowly Japan's nuclear bureaucracy moves even when political support exists.1
The cost question is not unique to Japan. India's nuclear plants generate power at ₹2.72–3.87 per kilowatt-hour, and the country's SHANTI Act, which allows private sector participation, has raised questions about whether new projects can match those tariffs. The global lesson is that nuclear's competitiveness depends heavily on construction costs and regulatory timelines.2
What to watch now is whether Hokkaido Electric commits to a concrete restart date and, more importantly, what tariff structure it proposes. If the utility can credibly link a Tomari restart to lower rates, other regions with idle reactors may follow with similar demands.4
The request also carries an unstated warning. If Tomari remains offline through another winter, Hokkaido will continue to rely on LNG and coal at prices that, as of Thursday's close (2026-08-20), showed European TTF gas at €65.30/MWh, up 2.98% on the day. Those costs eventually flow through to Japanese utilities' fuel bills.4
The next signal is the regulator's response timeline. Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority has not publicly scheduled a final safety assessment for Tomari, and any delay pushes the restart into the winter demand season, when the plant's contribution to grid stability would be most visible.1
For traders watching Japanese power and LNG demand, the Tomari timeline matters beyond Hokkaido. Each quarter the plant stays idle adds to Japan's import requirements and keeps the country's thermal fleet running harder. The business groups' Friday (2026-08-21) request is the clearest sign yet that Japan's corporate sector has concluded the cost of idleness now exceeds the risk of restart.4