Sendai Thermal Power Station
History. The Sendai Thermal Power Station was built in 1959 to supply power to the Sendai metropolis and surrounding Miyagi Prefecture. Unit 1 came online in October 1959. Unit 2 was completed in November 1960 and Unit 3 in June 1962. Initially, all three units burned coal; however, Unit 1 was subsequently modified to burn heavy oil instead. Unit 3 was abolished in March 2004 and Units 1 and 2 in August 2007, and replaced by the single combined cycle Unit 4, in order to reduce carbon emissions and lower operating costs, which came on line  in July 2010. Operations were temporarily suspended due to damage caused by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, but test operations were resumed on December 20 and full output was restored by February 8, 2012. From April 1, 2017, the rated output of Unit 4 was upgraded from 446,000 kW to 468,000 kW due to operational experience and software modifications. The site of Units 1, 2 and 3 are now occupied by the 2 MW capacity Sendai Solar Power Plant, which started operation on May 25, 2012.