News

State Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (VATESI), together with the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (DSA) and the state-owned Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP), carried out a project to enhance expertise and increase knowledge in the field of radioactive waste management.

One of the objectives of this project was to assess the feasibility of upgrading the existing bituminous radioactive waste storage facility at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant site to a bituminous radioactive waste repository, demonstrating that it can meet the requirements for repositories after the installation of appropriate safety barriers.

This required, in particular, an assessment of the safety of the future repository site. In order to provide technical support for the assessment of the safety justification documents for the site prepared by the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, as well as for the repository concept with its safety analysis report, International Atomic Energy Agency carried out expert missions, which were organized with support of the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority.

During the missions, the experts evaluated the site characteristics, the technical-engineering solutions of the repository concept, the performance of the safety barriers to be installed for the repository, and the long term (beyond the hundreds of years) safety aspects of the repository.

In this way, international experts from five countries provided technical support to VATESI in reviewing the safety justification documents for the future repository site. The project was unique and the advice was received for a non-standard decision-making situation, as the site under evaluation is dedicated for repository that has not been designed as a repository.

VATESI, after reviewing the documents by own resources and after receiving the conclusions and recommendations of international experts, has taken positive decisions to approve the Site Safety Assessment Report and the Technical Specification for the bituminous radioactive waste disposal facility.

In addition, under this project, specialists from VATESI, DSA and the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant have participated in training courses, improved their knowledge on various topics related to supervision of decommissioning and radioactive waste management activities.

The project "Enhancing the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management at Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant" was funded by the European Economic Area and Norway Grants for the period 2014-2021 and is aimed at the development of the environment, energy, climate change and low-carbon economy.