On June 29, 2017, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU) issued Certificate # E0 001060, which authorizes Energoatom to construct and commission a central storage facility in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in the north of the country, for the nation’s nine reactors (please see map above showing plant locations). The 45.2 hectares of allotted land for the storage facility will meet the nation’s storage needs for 100 years with ample reserve capacity. The facility will utilize Holtec’s HI-STORM 190 ventilated storage system (VVER counterpart of HI-STORM FW) with double walled canisters which will be transported to the central storage facility by a fleet of HI-STAR 190 casks. A pre-licensing release by SNRIU and an exhaustive QA-focused inspection by Energoatom in May 2017 enabled the manufacturing of the cask components to begin expeditiously at Holtec’s Pittsburgh and Camden plants. SNRIU Chief, Mr. Boris Stolyarchuk characterized his agency’s safety review as extremely detailed and comprehensive, encompassing a vast array of regulatory conditions and requirements.
Photos of weldments for Central Storage in manufacturing at the Holtec Manufacturing Division, Pittsburgh, PA
This central storage facility will begin accepting fuel in 2019 (easily beating Holtec’s domestic centralized storage program in New Mexico by perhaps two years).
“For Ukraine, this facility is a strategic and economic imperative that would make us self-reliant in used fuel management and save us nearly $200 million per year in avoided remittances to the Russian Federation,” says Energoatom’s President, Mr. Yuriy Nedashkovsky.
“It is heartening to see the energetic support of this project by the Poroshenko administration and the Groysman government, which underscores the national consensus on its vital strategic and economic value to Ukraine,” writes Holtec’s Senior Vice President Riaz Awan from his base at Holtec’s Kiev operation center.
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