Quake-hit Hokkaido power plant to be possibly restarted on Tuesday

A Hokkaido thermal power plant that has been offline since a powerful earthquake Sept. 6 could resume power output at one of its units on Tuesday, its operator Hokkaido Electric Power Co. said Monday.Restarting the No. 1 unit at the Tomatoatsuma thermal power plant, which provided roughly half of Hokkaido's electricity before the quake, would add 350,000 kilowatts to the power supply. The plant suffered infrastructure damage and a small fire in the disaster, triggering a prefecture-wide blackout.Initially, Hokkaido Electric planned to reboot the No. 1 unit at the end of September or later b…READ FULL ARTICLE