ISF-2 under Commissioning. SNRIU Issued Permit
The SNRIU issued an individual permit for commissioning of the Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility (ISF-2) of the Chornobyl NPP.
Individual permit No. ЕО 001002/1/15 of 25 August 2020 was presented by Chairman of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine Grygoriy Plachkov to First Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Bogdan Borukhovsky on 7 September.
Present persons: Chairman of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management Sergiy Kalashnyk, Acting Director General of the Chornobyl NPP Volodymyr Peskov and representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine, State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Main Directorate of the National Guard of Ukraine, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Holtec International.
“Today we take a significant step towards strengthening safety of using nuclear energy, because the beginning of ISF-2 commissioning will not only improve the safety level of spent nuclear fuel storage, but also intensify decommissioning of the Chornobyl NPP”, Grygoriy Plachkov highlighted in his speech.
The regulator’s decision to permit commissioning of the storage facility was preceded by the state review of ISF-2 on nuclear and radiation safety conducted jointly with the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety, whose conclusion was positive. Its results were confirmed by a survey of the facility performed by the SNRIU commission to verify the ability of Chornobyl NPP to perform the declared activities.
The permit for ISF-2 commissioning will allow hot tests using 186 ChNPP fuel assemblies, which are now stored at ISF-1.
Dry ISF-2 is designed to store spent fuel assemblies and spent additional absorbers accumulated at ChNPP. Holtec International, which constructed ISF-2, handed over the facility to the customer (Chornobyl NPP) in January 2020. Cold tests (checking operability of all systems) lasted from May to August 2019.
