On the last 29th of August, at INGECID’s Santander offices, we received a visit from the main people responsible for the decommissioning project of the Halden and Kjeller reactors, namely the Norwegian agency Norsk Nukleær Dekommisjonering (NND) and the Norwegian Institute of Energy Technology (IFE), responsible for the decommissioning of research reactors and other related nuclear infrastructures in Norway, together with our partners Createc and Catenda.
This three-day meeting was mainly devoted to a detailed follow-up of the project for the digitalisation of the decommissioning and waste management process of nuclear reactors, which the NND awarded to ICCircle, a consortium led by INGECID and created together with the British company Createc and the Norwegian company Catenda. This project, which has an execution period of 12 years and a budget of more than 14 million euros, will cover the entire spectrum of design, development and maintenance of IT solutions for the digitalisation of decommissioning, waste management and radiological characterisation processes, and INGECID will contribute its combined experience in decommissioning and waste management processes, nuclear engineering, software development and BIM methodology.
The occasion was also used to visit the Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant, where INGECID is also participating in another decommissioning project. During the visit, the team was able to see in-situ the strategy that was followed and lessons that were learned in the process of decommissioning projects in Spain from ENRESA, a Spanish company responsible for the decommissioning of nuclear power plants in Spain, and from Nuclenor, the owner of the Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant.
Another relevant aspect of this meeting was the visit to the facilities of Equipos Nucleares, S.A. (ENSA), with the aim of analysing first-hand the capabilities of the members of the CINC (Nuclear Industry Cluster of Cantabria).
This meeting further strengthens the relationship with NND and IFE, helping to position the ICCircle consortium as a benchmark in the dismantling and management of nuclear waste. In the words of Javier Alonso, spokesperson for ICCircle, the consortium immediately identified with NND’s ambitions for the new decommissioning and waste management digitalisation process. Together, the three ICCircle organisations have all the capabilities and extensive experience in the field of decommissioning and waste management, as well as in software development and the application of BIM methodology in the nuclear sector. This is a project in which the innovative solutions of the three ICCircle organisations will be applied, where the final solution will focus on the Vircore platform, to improve both safety and efficiency.
