ENRESA, the national radioactive waste company, has awarded a contract for the "Engineering service for the design modification of the Individualized Temporary Storage facility at the Santa María de Garoña nuclear power plant" to the joint venture formed by INGECID and WESTINGHOUSE, as announced on February 14, 2020.

The contract, signed on March 16, 2020, is for a total of more than half a million euros. The modification to the design of the temporary storage facility will increase its capacity to allow the temporary storage of all the fuel currently stored in its pool, so that work on decommissioning the plant can be carried out. The temporary storage facility must also have sufficient capacity to accommodate the special operational waste currently in the pool and waste from decommissioning.

Official license documentation for the modification of the storage facility’s design will be prepared. It will be submitted with the application for authorization of the decommissioning of the plant, and to subsequently support the request for a license from the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN). Support studies in different disciplines (structural, thermal, radiological, etc.) will be necessary and these will be the basis for the justification of the changes in the design of the facility.