Westinghouse to dismantle nuclear reactors in Lithuania

Westinghouse Electric Co. and Ignalinos Atominé Elektriné recently signed an agreement to dismantle the two RBMK-1500 nuclear power reactors at Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the Visaginas Municipality of Lithuania.

Westinghouse will serve as consortium leader for the project. It will be tasked with developing the engineering design that will be used to dismantle both reactors and provide waste management services.

“We are honored to bring our global leadership and technical innovation in decommissioning and waste management to this important decommissioning work at the Ignalina plant,” Tarik Choho, Westinghouse president of nuclear fuel, said. “We look forward to providing our strong expertise in graphite plant dismantling and delivering exceptional quality for this project.”

Westinghouse offers specialized decommissioning services to help customers reduce program risks and costs. It currently has 15 active reactor dismantling projects globally.

“Dismantling of the reactor core is the most complex and challenging part of decommissioning, and we are honored to bring together the most skillful and dependable international experts for this project,” Audrius Kamienas, Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant director general, said.

The project is the first decommissioning of a RBMK reactor. The Lithuanian Ministry of Finance, the European Commission and the Central Project Management Agency are funding the project.

The Lithuanian Energy Institute and Jacobs are other consortium members.