3 Jul (NucNet): Ukraine’s state nuclear operator Energoatom and Holtec International have signed an agreement for the construction of a centralised repository for spent nuclear fuel at the Chernobyl nuclear power station.
Energoatom said the contract follows the signing of an initial contract in 2005. Progress related to that contract had been slow because of judicial delays and delays related to the allocation of land.
But in April this year Ukraine’s government approved a decree allocating 45.2 hectares of land in the Chernobyl exclusion zone for the repository, which will store spent nuclear fuel from the country’s Russian-built VVER reactors.
The facility will be in an area between the villages of Stara Krasnytsia, Buriakivka, Chystohalivka, and Stechanka, southwest of the Chernobyl station.
The Ukrainian parliament passed a law on the construction of the facility in February 2012.
Completion of the facility is scheduled for the end of 2017. The facility will hold up to 17,000 spent nuclear fuel elements from three nuclear power stations: Khmelnitski, Rovno and South Ukraine. The Khmelnitski nuclear station has two commercially operational reactors and two under construction. Rovno has four reactors and South Ukraine three.
Ukraine’s fourth commercial nuclear station, the six-unit Zaporozhye, has its own spent fuel storage facility, commissioned in 2001.
All 15 commercial nuclear reactors in Ukraine are Russian-built VVER units.
