Chernobyl plant will save country about $200m a year in payments to Moscow
Ukraine’s state nuclear operator Energoatom has begun transporting used nuclear fuel from the nation’s operating reactors to its newly built central spent fuel storage facility (CSFSF).
The company said in a statement that operation of the facility, built by US-based Holtec International inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone in the north of the country, means Russia will not be able to force Ukraine’s reactors to shut down because of lack of used fuel storage capacity.
It said the facility would save Kyiv approximately $200m (€182m) a year in remittances to Russia for the storage of Ukraine’s fuel and remove a “strategic dependence” on Russia.
Oleg Korikov, acting director of the Ukrainian State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate, was quoted by local media as saying 13 containers of spent nuclear fuel have already been placed at the facility, which began trial operations earlier this year.
He said the next stage is to move the facility from trial operation to industrial operation.
The trial operation permit is valid for three years, he said. Energoatom now has two years and six months “to work on all elements of the technology, which should be carried out during the trial operation, then prepare a security analysis and apply for the transition into the industrial operation with the regulatory authority”.
Energoatom received an operating permit for the facility in April 2022. Construction began in 2017, although initial contracts with Holtec were signed in 2005.
The CSFSF will be used for storing spent fuel from nine units at the South Ukraine, Khmelnitski and Rivne nuclear power stations, which until 2021 was sent to Russia for processing and storage.
“Today, Ukraine is entirely self-sufficient in the strategically crucial area of storage and management of the used nuclear fuel discharged by its reactors, eliminating a critical constraint in the continued generation of electricity by the nation’s nine reactors,” Energoatom said.
Ukraine has a fleet of 15 commercial nuclear power reactors, but six are at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which is under Russian control with all units offline.
Speaking at the CSFSF, Energoatom president Petro Kotin said the new facility is critically important for Ukraine’s nuclear energy industry to ensure continued supply of electricity during the conflict with Russia.
