The Haramachi Thermal Power Station was built to provide baseline power to the
Tohoku region of Japan, including
Fukushima Prefecture. Unit 1 came online in July 1997, followed by Unit 2 in July 1998. Initially, only imported coal was used as fuel; however, due to pressures to reduce with
carbon emissions, both units were modified in 2010 to burn a mixture of coal and biomass (wood chip residue). Unit 1 is Tohoku Electric Power's first 1000 MW thermal power unit, the largest in Japan at the time, and uses a supercritical boiler and steam turbine with a main steam temperature of 566 °C, a reheat steam temperature of 593 °C, and a main steam pressure of 24.5MPa. In Unit 2, the main steam temperature and reheat steam temperature were both raised to 600 °C to further improve efficiency. In addition, the "Haramachi Solar Power Plant", a 1 MW solar power plant, was built on the site of the power plant and started operation on January 15, 2015. On March 11, 2011, the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake caused massive damage from the direct hit of a
tsunami of 18 meters in height. One employee died during the evacuation and a fire due to oil leak occurred. All four coal carriers were damaged and an 80,000-ton class coal ship was sunk. The power plant is located in the emergency evacuation zone area of the
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster which greatly hampered recovery work. However, Unit 2 was restarted on November 3, 2012 and Unit 1 on January 28, 2013. On March 29, 2013, Unit 2 resumed commercial operation, and on April 26, 2013, Unit 1 resumed commercial operation. ==Plant details==