site.btaNational Repository for Radioactive Waste Begins Operations

The National Repository for Radioactive Waste will be inaugurated by caretaker Minister of Energy Traicho Traikov, the Ministry of Energy said on Tuesday. The ceremony will take place at the Radiana site.

The national repository is designed to store only treated and conditioned radioactive waste generated in Bulgaria. It will hold low- and intermediate-level waste from industry, medicine and households, waste from the decommissioning of Units 1 to 4 of Kozloduy NPP, and waste from the operation of future new nuclear capacities, the Ministry of Energy said. High-level waste and spent nuclear fuel will not be stored there.

The national repository comprises 66 reinforced-concrete structures with capacity for 19,000 radioactive waste containers. It is expected to be filled over 60 years. Throughout that period and for the following 300 years, it will remain under constant oversight by the competent authorities.

Construction of the National Repository for Radioactive Waste was financed with a grant of about EUR 76 million from the International Kozloduy Fund through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. National co-financing for the project totaled about BGN 34 million. The repository received an operating permit from the National Construction Control Directorate in March 2026.

The National Repository is a long-planned facility assigned to the State Enterprise Radioactive Waste in 2005, with the project proceeding through site selection, design and construction before works officially began in 2017 at the Radiana site near Kozloduy. It is intended for processed and conditioned radioactive waste generated solely in Bulgaria, is expected to be filled gradually over 60 years, and then remain under permanent monitoring for 300 years; in late March the facility was declared fit for commissioning.