Bulgarian repository moves closer to commissioning

Executive Director of the State Enterprise Radioactive Waste (SE RAW) Dilyan Petrov said: "We are happy that with today's decision we can report the finalisation of a long and difficult project."

Following the confirmation by the Directorate for National Construction Control that the project has been completed in accordance with all requirements, SE RAW is now awaiting a permit for commissioning from the country’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency.

The repository site is close to the Kozloduy nuclear power plant. It will be a near-surface trench-type facility featuring multi-barrier protection for the storage of low- and intermediate-level waste in reinforced concrete packages. It will be used to store such waste from industry, medicine and households, wastes generated from the decommissioning of Kozloduy units 1-4 and from the future operation of nuclear power plants. The repository, which will not be used for storing high-level waste or used nuclear fuel, will have a capacity of 138,200 cubic metres of waste. It is expected to operate for about 60 years. The facility will then be closed and closely monitored for another 300 years.

The project was assigned to SE RAW by a government decision in 2005. After regional and detailed geological-geophysical, geochemical, engineering-geological and hydrogeological studies, the preferred Radiana site was selected. Construction began in August 2017.

The construction of the repository was part of the commitments made by Bulgaria in its accession to join the European Union. During EU accession negotiations, Bulgaria also committed to closing Kozloduy 1 and 2 by the end of 2002 and units 3 and 4 by the end of 2006. All four units were V-230 model VVER-440 reactors, which the European Commission had earlier classified as non-upgradable. Bulgaria joined the EU on 1 January 2007. The Kozloduy International Fund has financed the project on a grant basis through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Petrov said that Bulgaria now "ranks among the small number of countries with a completed radioactive waste management cycle and stressed that the availability of a repository for low- and intermediate-level RAW is of key importance for the construction of new nuclear capacities in Bulgaria".

Bulgaria currently has two units operating at Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, with capacity of 2 GWe. There are plans to build two Westinghouse AP1000 units at Kozloduy, as well as various proposals for small modular reactors in the country.