At Ignalina NPP (INPP) in Lithuania, construction has begun of a storage facility for low-level radioactive waste, INPP’s press service reported on 19 September.

The construction is being carried out under project B19-2, the aim of which is to create the infrastructure for the final disposal of very low level short-lived radioactive waste. A repository comprising three modules will be built with the capacity to store about 60,000 cubic metres of very low radioactive waste. The facility is scheduled to begin operation in 2020.

The new storage will be located adjacent to other facilities including the used nuclear fuel storage facility (project B1) and solid radioactive waste storage facility (project B3-4). The first part of the project (project B19-1) was implemented in 2013, when a buffer storage was built and put into operation pending construction of a final disposal facility.

Ignalina, comprising two 1500MWe RBMK reactors, was closed in 2009, as a condition for Lithuania’s joining the European Union.