Germany to extend last 2 nuclear power plant lifespans by a few weeks

Christina Macpherson

Sep 6

DW 5 SEpt 22, The economics ministry has issued a recommendation to keep two of Germany's last atomic energy stations online through the winter as Berlin scrambles to come up with alternatives to Russian gas.

Germany announced on Monday that it would likely be extending the life of two of its remaining nuclear power plants.

Deputy Chancellor Robert Habeck, whose ministerial brief incorporates energy policy, said that the plants were to be put on standby until mid-April 2023, instead of being shut down as planned at the end of the year.

Bavaria's Isar 2 station as well as Neckarwestheim 2, which is north of Stuttgart, will act as reserve power sources through the winter.

The third remaining plant will not be needed, according to a report by the economics ministry that stress tested the three stations.

"That there are many-hour crisis situations in our power grid over the winter of 2022/2023 is very unlikely," Habeck said on whether Germany could face blackouts as the result of a looming energy crunch.

At the same press conference, Habeck expressed his extreme confidence in the country's energy supply following a "stress test" carried out earlier in the day.

"We have a high level of supply security," the deputy chancellor said. "We have great grid stability."

The move is a major about-face in German energy policy, where the government has been committed to a complete nuclear phaseout since 2011.

For two of the three parties currently in coalition, the SPD and the Greens in particular, exiting nuclear power was also a decades-long campaign platform. The SPD and Greens together ushered in Germany's first nuclear phaseout, only for it to be overturned for just 18 months or so by former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who eventually reverted to a shutdown soon after the Fukushima meltdown in Japan................................