You're reading: Ukraine plans to start building spent nuclear fuel storage facility in 2015

Ukraine intends to start building a centralized storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in 2015, Yuriy Nedashkovsky, the president of Energoatom, the national operator of the Ukrainian nuclear power plants, said during the project's inauguration ceremony.

Kris Singh, President and CEO of Holtec International, whose technology will be used in building the facility, also took part in the ceremony.

Nedashkovsky said first containers in which spent nuclear fuel would be stored should be supplied to Ukraine by early 2017.

The envelopes with bids were opened on Aug. 21 to select design organizations, Nedashkovsky said. A total of seven bids have been submitted, and Energoatom would choose the facility’s designer in 20 days. The facility’s designing should start by the end of 2014.

Nedashkovsky said 90 percent of the project’s financing would come in the form of export loans and 10 percent would be Energoatom’s advance payment.

“Finally, this money would be returned after the storage facility’s commissioning and filling, by saving on taking spent nuclear fuel to Russia,” he said.

Singh suggested that banks that had worked earlier with Energoatom could be involved in financing the project.

Nedashkovsky said the contract envisions the transfer of technology from Holtec to Ukraine.

“The technology is very complicated, and it uses materials that are not produced in Ukraine yet,” he added.

Singh said the transfer of technology to Ukraine would be started in four years.

Ukraine pays annually about $200 million to Russia for processing and storing spent nuclear fuel, which is about as much as the construction of a centralized storage facility for spent nuclear fuel costs, Nedashkovsky said.

The facility construction should have a significant economic effect and is very important project for the country in terms of its energy independence, he said.

It was reported earlier that, in order to cut expenditures involved in the processing of spent nuclear fuel, Energoatom announced an international tender in 2003 to select a company for setting up a dry storage facility for spent nuclear fuel from three NPPs (the Zaporizhia NPP already has its own spent nuclear fuel storage facility). Holtec International was declared the winner of the tender at the end of 2005. In December 2005, Energoatom concluded a contract worth 127.75 million euro with Holtec International to design, license, construct, and put into operation the first phase of a dry storage facility.

However, the Verkhovna Rada passed legislation on building a centralized storage facility for spent nuclear fuel only in February 2012, and land for the facility was allocated only in April 2014.

The centralized storage facility for spent nuclear fuel will be part of a spent nuclear fuel processing center under the Chornobyl NPP state enterprise.