KHNP completes 90% safety measures against nuclear accidents

State-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Corp., operator of the nation’s 25 nuclear reactors, said Tuesday that the company has completed 87.5 percent of its planned safety measures against accidents that it developed as a follow-up after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011.

“The company has been proceeding with the completion of safety-related tasks by 2020 under its safety management roadmap for the past five years,’’ a KHNP official said. 

A month after the Fukushima accident, to ease public concerns, KHNP conducted a safety review of the nuclear complexes nationwide. Based on the review, it decided to undertake 56 tasks to gradually improve safety of the reactors by 2020 under the goal of protecting the life and property of people from nuclear accidents.

As of 2015, the reactor operator, which generates one-third of power consumed in Korea, carried out 49 tasks to secure reactors from any extreme natural disaster and to prevent any radiation leakage, including extension of the seawall surrounding the Kori nuclear power complex in Busan.

KHNP also placed a mobile power generation vehicle in each nuclear power complex, while installing external water injection lines for emergency cooling water supply to reactors.

Backed by the advanced safety measures and technological improvements and stability in operations, the reactor operator has improved its business performance. In 2015, the company earned revenue of 10.6 trillion won ($8.92 billion) and logged 2.5 trillion won in net profit.

The better-than-expected profit gains helped KHNP to pay back 697.9 billion in debt last year, 138 percent higher than the annual target debt payment of 506.3 billion won. The state-run company also boosted its investment to 3.2 trillion won.

“KHNP will spur the top 10 projects to take the company to the next level, which includes new energy business development projects and hydropower projects overseas,’’ a company official said.

By Seo Jee-yeon (jyseo@heraldcorp.com)