September 26, 1977, the day of ChNPP Power Unit 1 start-up. The first of nuclear power plant four reactors began to work opening the way to nuclear power industry in Ukraine.
We remind that before the accident of April 26, 1986, there had been four power units with total electric power output of 4,000 Megawatt. ChNPP was the first nuclear power plant which started to work in Ukraine (1977) and the first one which commenced decommissioning (2000).
A series of trainings to maintain ChNPP personnel’s spent fuel handling skills is taking place on site of the plant.
During the training, staff of the Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Shop is practicing the performance of all the fuel handling operations on the real equipment using spent fuel dummies. These trainings are being passed by all operating shifts of the two storage facilities.
On 26 August, physical works on the ‘hot’ testing stage 3 of the Industrial Complex for Solid Radioactive Waste Management (ICSRM) were completed.
“Successful completion of testing is a very important step in the activity of Chornobyl NPP, — comments on the testing results Deputy Head of the ChNPP’s Radwaste Management Shop (for RW processing), Mr Illia Shumkov. ‘Hot’ testing is always quite a difficult process, which is preceded by a large volume of preparatory technical and paper work. Let me remind that we call ‘hot’ tests the testing which is conducted in the conditions which are similar as much as possible to the real operating conditions of the facility. During ‘hot’ testing, the staff and equipment work with the real radioactive materials. Beside other things, the 3rd stage of hot testing was more complicated because of the occupation of the plant and the connected suspension of the licenses for this activity.
On 27 August, the general emergency response drill was conducted themed “Evacuation of staff from ChNPP buildings and facilities to Slavutych town in the event of a threat of seizure of the power plant”.
The purpose of the drill was to practice the actions of ChNPP staff and contractors at the threat of power plant’s seizure.
Based on the training scenario, there was a possibility of capturing the Chornobyl NPP site. Using the adopted instructions, the staff was notified of the threat and instructed on the follow-up actions. After that, the evacuation committee practiced their actions on identifying the number of necessary vehicles, the timeframe for evacuation as well as evacuation routes, and on the evacuation itself.
On August 21, Chornobyl NPP transferred a batch of radioactive waste for disposal. This is the first batch since the ChNPP industrial site was de-occupied.
According to a Deputy Head of RAW Processing Shop Illia Shumkov, in order to resume a full operation of radioactive waste processing infrastructure, a number of activities were performed to confirm the safe and correct operation of the equipment and systems involved in the RAW processing.
“We carried out a check of the functional state of all equipment used in the technological process of forming a waste package, as well as preparing for and sending the RAW packages for disposal. The RAW processing staff passed the relevant training courses to resume the practical skills. The training with the last shift was successfully completed on August 14”, — comments Mr. Shumkov.