Kyushu Electric Power Co on Friday called on households and businesses in its service area to conserve power as much as possible in an attempt to reduce electricity demand by 5% this summer.

KEPCO President Michiaki Uriu said the utility does not plan to restart any of its six nuclear power reactors that it has put into cold shutdown, Sankei Shimbun reported. Uriu said that this will result in nearly zero surplus power and called on residents to conserve electricity where possible.

To help protect against power shortages, the company has instituted stricter guidelines for granting discounts to low-consumption users. The cutoff will now be 300 kW as opposed to 500 kW.

KEPCO, however, has said it is not considering raising standard electricity rates, even though power costs have risen since the company began relying more heavily on thermal energy sources.

Uriu said if that if KEPCO doesn't bring the nuclear reactors online again in the future, those costs may be passed on to consumers.

During the winter, KEPCO made a similar request to its customers to cut back on power usage from Dec 1 to March 30 during the peak periods of 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

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