Lloyd's to review South Korea nuclear reactor certificates

Follows embarrassing scandal over fake safety certificates.

South Korea has selected Lloyd's Register to review the safety certificates its nuclear reactors in the wake of a recent scandal over forged documents, said the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

South Korea has faced shutdown of its nuclear reactors due to fake documents going back to 2012. Of the country's 23 nuclear reactors, six remain offline.

This includes three reactors halted to replace cables that were supplied with forged certificates. Korea derives a third of its electricity from nuclear power.

Lloyd's, better known as a global ship classifier, also assesses and advises on power generation operations. It will examine South Korea’s quality and safety certificates for the next two years, starting in mid-October.

Lloyd's will work with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co Ltd, which runs all of South Korea’s nuclear reactors. It will determine whether local certification documents are forged. If fake certificates are found, the government will notify the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission.

With the outages between June and August, South Korea narrowly avoided blackouts by restricting power use to 6,000 MW via a nationwide energy-savings campaign.