OREANDA-NEWS. March 22, 2011. Toshiba Announces 700 Engineers Called to Action and 100 Engineers Deployed to the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini Power Plants.

Tokyo – Toshiba’s thoughts and efforts are focused on assisting the people and the community struck by the unprecedented disaster of the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Northeastern Japan on March 11, Japan Time.

The hugely powerful earthquake caused extensive damage to the power supply infrastructure in the Tohoku (Northeast) region and also impacted the power grid serving Greater Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures, collectively called Kanto.

Responding to requests from the Japanese government and electric utilities, Toshiba Group, a major supplier of power systems and related infrastructure, is making utmost efforts to help maintain the integrity of the nuclear power plants and to restore the power supply in affected regions at the earliest possible date, working in close collaboration with other companies and entities.

Immediately after the earthquake, Toshiba formed a task force which now comprises some 700 engineers at the company’s Tokyo headquarters, at its Isogo Nuclear Engineering Center in Yokohama and at other facilities, in order to address the incidents at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants. This team is now gathering and analyzing information 24/7 and developing solutions.

Following requests from the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Co, Ltd. (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima power plants, Toshiba has already dispatched more than 100 engineers to Fukushima Daiichi and the nearby Fukushima Daini power plants. These personnel are now providing vital support and resources. Toshiba will reinforce these resources as required.

Toshiba has received offers of support from The Babcock & Wilcox Company, a leading U.S. provider of a broad range of power technologies and services, and The Shaw Group, Toshiba’s ABWR plant partner and expert in nuclear, environmental and natural disaster response services. Toshiba is actively assessing the skills and expertise that B&W, Shaw and Westinghouse could add to Toshiba’s ongoing efforts to secure the safety of the nuclear power plants, enabling Toshiba and its team to provide utmost cooperation to the safe and prompt recovery efforts being implemented at Fukushima.

While the Japanese government and electric power companies are striving for an early end to power shortages in Tohoku and Kanto, Toshiba Group has concurrently formed a task force of 150 people in the Toshiba Headquarters and related facilities to extend full support for the recovery or enhancement of the thermal power capacity and the restoration of the transmission and distribution networks. Toshiba Group will be engaged in the restoration projects of TEPCO and Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc. for their damaged thermal power plants; bringing forward the schedule of resumption of operation of thermal power plants that are currently undergoing periodic maintenance; and bringing back into use some of the mothballed thermal plants; as well as restoring devastated power transmission and distribution systems, including substations and switchyards.

Toshiba Group will continue to make the full use of manufacturing capabilities at Keihin Product Operations, Toshiba’s main power generation systems facility in Yokohama; at its Fuchu Complex in Tokyo; at its Hamakawasaki Operations in Kawasaki; and at its Mie operations in Mie Prefecture, the Group’s main facilities for power systems, and to produce and supply equipment required to restore the power systems network at the earliest possible date.