Decommissioning after shutdown

Decommissioning is understood as all measures for the dismantling of the plant, starting with the preparations and obtaining the required permits. The decommissioning of a nuclear plant is completed once it no longer constitutes a radiological hazard and has been released from nuclear legislation.

The nuclear energy act already stipulates a so-called decommissioning concept for the general license; for the construction licence and ongoing operation, a regularly updated decommissioning plan is required and for the actual decommissioning the decommissioning project is required.

The stages of decommissioning require careful and timely planning.

The decommissioning concept is part of the legally prescribed documents for the application for a general license. It roughly describes the processes which will be used for the future decommissioning, lists the possible decommissioning variants, provides potential decision criteria for the future choice of a certain variant, describes the decommissioning sequence and provides suggested phasing of the decommissioning. It includes neither a specific time schedule of the decommissioning measures nor details of the waste or costs which will arise. The decommissioning also contains no statements about the methods and technologies to be used.

When applying for a construction license, a decommissioning plan is required. This takes into account the fundamentals included in the decommissioning concept. Furthermore, it includes an estimate of the quantity and type of the decommissioning waste and provides – to give a basis for the estimate of the decommissioning costs – a model for the methods and technologies to be used. Finally, it states the work content and costs for the decommissioning with an accuracy which in line with the legal requirements allows the contributions to be estimated which will need to be made to the decommissioning fund for the decommissioning and dismantling of the life-expired plant and the disposal of the resulting waste to be guaranteed. During the operation of the nuclear power plant the permit holder also updates the plan for the decommissioning of the plant as a special part of fulfilling its obligations according to the legal requirements from the operation license.

For the decommissioning, the owner submits a project for the planned decommissioning to the responsible license authorities. This decommissioning project sets out the phases and time schedule for the decommissioning, the individual steps of dismantling, the protective measures, the personnel requirements and the organisation, the disposal of the radioactive waste, the total costs as well as how the financing will be ensured by the operator. The responsible department sets out the decommissioning work within the decommissioning order and also determines which work requires approval by the regulatory authorities.