It's over in April: Habeck creates "nuclear power plant reserve"

Even after the second stress test for the German power grid, Economics Minister Habeck is not shaking things up with the nuclear phase-out. Only two nuclear power plants should be available by April. They are scheduled to go offline at the end of December.

Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck wants to keep two of the three nuclear power plants still in operation in Germany beyond December 31 of this year as “nuclear power plant operational reserves”. The Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim nuclear power plants would be available “to provide emergency coverage for the winter” until mid-April 2023 “in order to be able to make an additional contribution to the power grid in southern Germany over the winter of 2022/23,” said the Greens -politician with.

All three nuclear power plants are scheduled to go offline at the end of 2022. Habeck emphasized that there will be no stretching, no extension of service life and no new fuel rods. The federal government is sticking to the nuclear phase-out. The FDP, on the other hand, had called for an extension of the service life and had not ruled out the purchase of new fuel rods. It was only on Monday that FDP leader and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner called for the continued operation of all three nuclear power plants. “In these times, all possibilities should be used to reduce the electricity price for people and companies,” he told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.

The announcement by the Economics Minister follows a second stress test by network operators. Their analysis came to the conclusion “that crisis situations in the electricity system that lasted by the hour in the winter of 22/23 are very unlikely, but cannot be completely ruled out at the moment,” according to a statement from the ministry.

Because Russia is supplying less gas and in view of the sharp rise in energy prices, discussions have been going on in Germany for months about a possible longer operation of the three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany. It was originally intended that the remaining Meiler Isar 2 in Lower Bavaria, Emsland in Lower Saxony and Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg would go offline at the end of the year.