100th container with spent nuclear fuel is placed for interim storage

09 April,
2019
100th container with spent nuclear fuel is placed for interim storage

On 9 April SE Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (Ignalina NPP) placed the 100th container with spent nuclear fuel to the Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility (ISFSF).

Within the entire period of operation INPP has accumulated almost 22 thousand of spent nuclear fuel assemblies. 6016 of them are already placed to the completely loaded ‘old’ type interim spent fuel storage facility constructed in 1999. At present, 9070 fuel assemblies out of 15555 existing ones are already placed to the new facility.

Loading of all 100 containers required formation of welded seams (designed to provide additional tightness of protective steel covers) of the total length reaching 1.444 km.

Successful spent nuclear fuel unloading process has been started earlier than it was anticipated in the final decommissioning plan of 2014 and now INPP continues to maintain a rapid pace of work execution (maintaining a reserve of 20 per cent). It is planned to place 190 containers with spent nuclear fuel to the storage facility by the end of 2022.

When complying with the applicable safety requirements Ignalina NPP makes every effort to achieve the desired result in the area of decommissioning.