The Greifswald decommissioning project - strategy, status, and lessons learned

On the Greifswald site, 8 units of the Russian-designed reactor WWER 440 are located, including several facilities to handle and store fuel and radwaste. Shortly after the reunification of Germany in 1989, the operating units 1 - 5 were switched off and the construction work at the nearly completely installed units 6 - 8 was stopped. After serious investigations to restart some of the units, a decision was finally taken to decommission all units. Due to this decision, massive personnel reductions were unavoidable. Technically the work was primarily focused on the removal of fuel and treatment of operational waste to provide the preconditions for decommissioning and dismantling. To solve this task of management of the spent fuel, operational waste and the large amounts of dismantled material, a large interim storage facility was built at the Greifswald site. This facility was built in order to guarantee that continuous dismantling could be achieved throughout the lifetime of the project. Following extensive but necessary restructuring the owners of the Greifswald site, Energiewerke Nord, have planned and are implementing a challenging nuclear decommissioning programme which is proceeding effectively. This paper describes the strategic approach taken, provides detail of the current status of the work and offers some key lessons which have been learnt to-date.