Radioactive Waste Storages

Fortum has decades of experience in developing and operating its own waste repositories at the Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant. Located on the same site as Loviisa NPP, we operate both our own interim storages for spent nuclear fuel and the repository for low-and-intermediate level waste. Through our own waste management organization responsibilities we have accumulated significant  amount of expertise in the licensing, engineering, construction, commissioning and operation of the radioactive waste storage facilities. Additionally, we have valuable experience in implementing plant modifications for interim spent fuel storage and the low-and-intermediate waste repository. 

Based on our own world-class expertise from waste repositories we offer technical support and consulting services for other waste management organizations. We support the organizations who are planning of new repositories or who want to further-develop their current storing concepts.

Our offering covers comprehensive solutions for the management of both low and intermediate level waste, which includes operational waste, decommissioning waste, and radioactive waste from industries. Our services encompass owner’s engineering and consultation, ensuring efficient waste logistics alongside processing and storage of low and intermediate level waste to meet the highest safety and environmental standards.

For high-level waste, particularly spent nuclear fuel, we offer a range of services from the conceptual stage to basic and detailed design of interim spent fuel storages. Our team is dedicated to safety engineering, providing licensing support for storages, and conducting thorough safety analysis for interim storages to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.

Our approach aims to enable safe storage without forgetting cost efficient, easily adaptable and customizable processes and design. We tailor the solutions taking into account different premises for different wastes depending on material, radioactivity and contamination level and waste fraction/component size. 

Fortum has designed wet storages for its fully-owned Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant and for its co-owned Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland. In addition, Fortum also made conceptual and basic design for interim storage for planned Hanhikivi Nuclear Power Plant newbuild project. As a specialty we have experience in implementation of high density fuel racks to wet pool storages to increase the capacity of the storage, and we have also implemented design modifications to increase diversity, redundancy and independency of spent fuel cooling. 

The key features and benefits of Fortum’s Spent fuel interim storage concept are:

• Adapts well to complete nuclear fuel cycle including final disposal.
• Redundant ultimate heat sink applied. Lessons learned from Fukushima taken into account.
• Air plane crash protection applied.
• No penetrations from fuel pools below the water surface. Reduced risk of leaks.
• Compatibility with final disposal: easy transfer of fuel out from spent fuel storage
• Cost efficient considering both construction and operating costs
• Easily adaptable to different needs