Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership Nuclear Window Support Fund
The Nuclear Window operated as part of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) Support Fund, specifically addressing the nuclear legacy left by Soviet-era nuclear vessels in North West Russia. It complemented existing Russian and bilateral initiatives aimed at decommissioning vessels, ensuring secure infrastructure for nuclear materials, and safely removing spent nuclear fuel.
Established in 2003, the Nuclear Window received €165 million from contributors to address environmental risks in North-West Russia. Key projects funded by the NDEP Nuclear Window included:
- Construction of facilities and provision of equipment for the safe handling and transport of spent nuclear fuel from Andreeva Bay's former coastal technical base. Completed in 2017, this project involves transporting over 20,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies to the Mayak reprocessing plant in the Ural Mountains.
- Decommissioning of Building No.5 at Andreeva Bay, a heavily contaminated former spent fuel storage facility. Remote equipment was developed to retrieve and remove spent fuel assemblies, with installation and commissioning completed in 2019.
- Removal of spent nuclear fuel from the reactors of the Papa-class submarine (NPS 501) using specialized equipment. Both reactors were successfully defueled, and the fuel was transported to Mayak for processing, with the reactor compartment transferred to Sayda Bay for long-term storage in 2015.
- Decommissioning of the Lepse service ship, which contained a significant amount of spent fuel. After dismantling at Nerpa shipyard, two large storage packages were created. The aft package, containing radioactive waste, was transferred to Sayda Bay for storage. Infrastructure and equipment for safe fuel removal from the Lepse were completed in 2018, with fuel removal operations finished in 2020.
With the agreement of the Assembly of Contributors, NDEP was terminated at the end of November 2023.