Kola NPP pilots use of ultraviolet wastewater disinfection

Two ultraviolet disinfection units, installed as part of the company's environment programme, will provide for the purification of up to 400 cubic metres of water per hour (around the clock). Each ultraviolet module is equipped with 18 lamps, under the influence of ultraviolet radiation which purifies wastewater from microorganisms, viruses and bacteria.

Vasily Omelchuk, director of the Kola NPP, said installation of the equipment would establish "a new culture of water use" in the Kola Arctic.

Most of the water used by the plant does not need to be treated and is returned to ​​Lake Imandra, it said. About 700,000 cubic metres of water are purified each year at a sewage treatment plant.

The quality of water near Kola NPP is evidenced by the fact that a trout farm has been successfully operating in the vicinity of the technological discharge channel of the nuclear power plant since 1998, Kola NPP said, adding that breeding of sturgeon was started in 2002. Lake Imandra is the only place in the European North where, thanks to the proximity to the nuclear power plant, it was possible to provide an environment for sturgeon to breed, it said.