Inpp by East Coast Promotions

COMPANY PROFILE

2014

INPP

End of an eraâ&#x20AC;Ś

Editorial: Colin Chinery

Back in July, Total World Energy profiled the decommissioning of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Visaginas in Lithuania. The long process of decommissioning started back in 1999 and on 31 December 2009, the plant completely suspended the production of electricity. INPP Director General, Darius JanuleviÄ?ius tells us more about the progress and challenges of such a monumental process...

PAGE 78

INPP Q: When was the decision taken to decommission the INPP? International community’s opinion was significant for Lithuania during the process of preparation for its accession to the EU and NATO. Therefore, Lithuania respecting the international community’s opinion and having regard to the Nuclear Safety Account Grant Agreement in the approved in Parliament National Energy Strategy in 1999 scheduled the shutdown of Unit 1 of Ignalina NPP by 2005 according to the EU’s, the G-7 counties’, other countries’ and international financial institutions’ long-term substantial financial assistance. In 2000, according to the National Energy Strategy, the Parliament of Lithuania adopted the Law on the Decommissioning of Unit 1 of the State Enterprise Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. Lithuania complied with the requirements of the Treaty of Accession to the European Union to shut down Ignalina NPP and the EU committed itself to provide adequate additional financial assistance to the decommissioning. In line with accession to the European Union treaty commitments INPP completely suspended the production of electricity on 31 December 2009 and its activity has been changed from electricity producer to decommissioning organization while maintaining the status of nuclear facility operating enterprise.

Q: What were the main factors that had to be considered? INPP shutdown was a rather political decision; it is difficult

to specify the main factors that were taken into account during the decision making process, however, it is clear that technical, economic and political factors had to be evaluated i.e. European Union and other countries’ international financial institutions’ long-term substantial financial assistance. The decommissioning program was developed to cover radioactive waste and spent fuel management, dismantling activities, development of relevant legislations, mitigation of social consequences and development of final decommissioning plan, and other decommissioning documents including environmental impact assessment.

Q: What impact has the decision had on the energy industry/nuclear industry in Lithuania? Since the final closure of Ignalina NPP, Lithuania has become heavily dependent on imported electricity. The greater part of this electricity comes from a single outside supplier - Russia - which is also the source of the gas supply which fuels much domestic electricity production. On the closure of Ignalina NPP Lithuania transformed from an exporter to an importer of electricity and consumer electricity prices rose by nearly 30%.

Q: How long is decommissioning expected to last? According to the revised Final Decommissioning Plan currently being reviewed by authorities, it is expected that INPP decommissioning process will last until 2038.

Q: How much does decommissioning cost? An immediate dismantling strategy was chosen as Ignalina NPP decommissioning strategy – this is the way the equipment is dismantled almost immediately after the closure of reactor’s operation in order to avoid serious social, economic, financial and environmental consequences. The choice of method of decommissioning was influenced by various factors: economic, social, safety aspects and decommissioning work experience at other nuclear power plants. Today the total cost of INPP decommissioning according to the immediate dismantling strategy is 2 592,6 million Euros (without inflation and risks).

Q: Has a decision been made on the location of an interim storage facility for Ignalina’s spent nuclear fuel? The existing INPP on-site dry type SNF storage facility that was commissioned in 1999 has been totally filled. The left SNF is still stored in the Unit 2 reactor and storage pools, therefore, INPP is constructing a new Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility (project B1) that shall cover all needs for interim spent fuel storage.

Q: Following the events at Fukushima in 2011, have safety standards and procedures changed? While necessary, do increased safety standards cause extra difficulty in a decommissioning project? Fukushima event had no direct influence on safety standards or INPP decommissioning project. On 25 March 2011 as a response

to events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, the decision to carry out “Stress Tests” was adopted by the European Council. “Stress Tests” are additional detailed and transparent risk and safety assessments during which the safety of all nuclear power plants’ in the European Union must be revised. During performance of “Stress Tests” at Ignalina NPP an additional safety assessment has been accomplished for two final shutdown power units and spent nuclear fuel storages which are in operation and under construction respectively, in case of a potential earthquake, flooding, loss of electrical power, loss of ultimate heat sink, accidents or extreme factors. Results of

PAGE 80

the “Stress Tests” report has demonstrated that appropriate measures are provided at INPP to be taken in order to ensure the safe operation of INPP and storage facilities and to protect people and environment from the harmful effects of radiation in the case of incident or emergency at INPP for a variety of adverse factors. According to these results, INPP emergency preparedness plan and severe accident management documentation modifications have been implemented.

Q: What was the purpose of the visit of Alexander Bychkov, Deputy Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency, in April?

Alexander Bychkov, Deputy Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency and Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy visited Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant on 1 April 2014. During the visit he met with the Management of the Enterprise and got familiar with the INPP decommissioning projects. During the meeting, special attention was paid to the INPP used radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel handling technologies and in-operation and under construction radioactive waste treatment facilities. INPP specialists introduced Mr Bychkov to the methodologies applied in the enterprise for the reduction of the waste quantities accumulated during the decommissioning and characterization and handling methods applied for waste with complex geometry. Mr Bychkov was also introduced to the world’s unique Project UP01 (Engineering on Dismantling of Units 1 and 2 structures

INPP from the Reactor Shafts) initiated and being implemented by the capacities of INPP in-house employees only. During the visit Mr Bychkov visited the Free Release Measurement Facility (Project B10), Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility (Project B1) and Solid Waste Management and Storage Facilities (Project B3/4) construction sites where he had a close look at the progress of the projects.

Q: What sort of assistance/help/ guidance has the International Atomic Energy Agency offered since the beginning of the decommissioning project? Ignalina NPP specialists regularly participate in technical meeting/seminars organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency. They provide a platform for exchange of opinions, best practices and discussions over the issues of decommissioning and radioactive waste management. There are also several research agreements between IAEA and INPP, for example, “Treatment for Irradiated Graphite to Meet Acceptance Criteria for Waste Disposal”. IAEA assists with broadening the contact between personnel with similar interests and offers scientific consultation and support. INPP does research and as a result receives new information which will be used for radioactive waste management. Also as a result of Mr Bychkov’s visit – a meeting was held on July 2-3 to clarify the possible cooperation in the characterization of the radioactive waste packages and their disposal in Landfill and NSR (Near Surface Repository).

Owing to technical and operational features, the RBMK reactor presents particular technical challenges for decommissioning, mainly; huge primary masses of buildings, structures and equipment; a large proportion of such masses that are contaminated; large volumes of decommissioning wastes, including long-lived radioactive waste (such as irradiated graphite) for which there is no established disposal method in Lithuania at the moment. No other RBMK has been dismantled and worldwide there has been no dismantling of any graphite-moderated reactor of equivalent size. Nevertheless, INPP will gather and apply state-of-theart feedback from the already performed and on-going commercial reactor decommissioning projects, as those reactors that exhibit similar technological features as RBMKs.

Q: What economic impact is the decommissioning project having on the local community? Presumably jobs are being created and skills are being developed? Founded in 1975, Visaginas is a purpose-built satellite town serving the power plant. Its population decreased from 30,000 to 22,000 inhabitants in recent years. Visaginas has been hard hit by the closure of INPP suffering rise in heating prices, the decline in staffing and

prestige of its largest employer and the loss of the original reason for the town’s existence. INPP decommissioning project had impact on economic and social factors of the local community as the shutdown of power plant led to redundancy of employees and bankruptcy of related companies. In spite of that, INPP had the most powerful reactors in the world, many innovations were developed at INPP that were adopted in other Nuclear Power Plants with RBMK type reactors and Lithuania is the first to decommission the RBMK type reactors under immediate dismantling strategy which makes the INPP decommissioning project a unique world first. The enterprise‘s mission is to discontinue the operation of RBMKtype plant using resources effectively, while maintaining public support for nuclear energy. While implementing the enterprise‘s decommissioning projects, the knowledge and the experience of the personnel is utilised in the most efficient ways possible. Currently the number of employees in INPP has increased slightly due to the intensification of dismantling and decontamination activities. They are given the opportunity to gain new unique experience which they will be able to apply in the future while implementing similar projects.

Q: Does working with RBMK reactors make the decommissioning project more difficult than PWR or magnox reactors?

PAGE 81

+44 (0) 1603 411569 info@totalworldenergy.com East Coast Promotions Ltd, 2 Ardney Rise Norwich, Norfolk NR3 3QH