Kansai Electric Power Company has decided to operate unit 3 of the Mihama nuclear power plant in Japan's Fukui Prefecture beyond 40 years. The company has drawn up a plan for safety improvement works at the unit, which has already received regulatory approval to operate for a further 20 years.

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has delivered three replacement steam generators for unit 1 of the Cruas nuclear power plant in south-western France. They will be installed later this year during a scheduled maintenance outage.

An international arbitration panel has ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay the owners of the San Onofre nuclear power plant $125 million for defective steam generators supplied to the plant in 2009 and 2010. The International Chamber of Commerce capped the award at the liability limit contained in the contract to supply the components.

The two simulators at South Africa's Koeberg nuclear power plant are to be upgraded by Canada-based L3 MAPPS, taking into account the changes that the replacement of steam generators in the actual units will make on the plant's performance.

Bruce Power has awarded L3 MAPPS a contract to replace the digital control computer system of unit 6 of the Bruce B nuclear power plant in Ontario. Bruce Power has also awarded SNC-Lavalin contracts worth almost $28 million for its major component replacement program.

Nuclear energy's share of Ukraine's electricity mix is "rapidly approaching" 60%, President Petro Poroshenko said at a meeting of the country's National Security and Defence Council yesterday, according to a statement on the presidential website. The president did not give a date by which the increase would be achieved.

Spain's nuclear safety regulator has given conditional approval for the restart and continued operation of the Garoña nuclear power plant, which has been offline for the past four years. Operator Nuclenor would be required to make a number of safety upgrades.

Japan's Tohoku Electric Power Company has pushed back the expected completion dates of construction work to bolster safety at unit 2 of its Onagawa nuclear power plant and unit 1 of its Higashidori plant. The work must be completed before the units will be allowed to resume operation.

Canada's L-3 MAPPS has been awarded a contract to support modernization of the full-scope control room simulator for Mexico's sole nuclear power plant, the twin-unit Laguna Verde.

Global nuclear generating capacity increased slightly in 2016 to 391.6 GWe net, up from 382.2 GWe at the end of 2015, according to data from the World Nuclear Association. Construction of three large reactor projects also started during 2016, while three units were permanently shut down.

WEST is the new name for Tore Supra, a plasma facility near Cadarache in southern France, which has been upgraded to undertake research towards the Iter fusion project. The reactor celebrated its first plasma on 14 December as part of its mission to support the Iter project.

Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom has agreed to enhance its cooperation with Chinese, Argentinian and Spanish companies - respectively, China National Nuclear Power, Nucleoeléctrica Argentina SA and IDOM Nuclear Services.