If the tests are successful, the plant will start storing the waste in the new complex in 2018.
"This is an important phase of decommissioning of the Ignalina NPP," the nuclear plant's CEO Darius Janulevicius said in a press release.
Ina Dauksiene, spokeswoman for Ignalina, told BNS that the complex would store 2,500 cubic meters of short-term waste, which will require nearly 1,200 concrete containers, and 2,000 cubic meters of long-term waste that will need 840 metal containers.
The processes waste will be stored for up to 50 years before burial in burial sites, which still need to be constructed.
The nearly 200-million-euro complex was built by a Russian-capital German company Nukem Technologies.
Lithuania's Ignalina NPP, which was the first worldwide to close down the unsafe Russian-made RBMK-type reactors, should be brought to full stop by 2038. In light of the country's commitments to the European Union (EU), the plant's first reactor was decommissioned in 2004 and the second one was shut down at the end of 2009.
