What follows from the Chancellor's nuclear announcement?
Julia Loehr
Business correspondent in Berlin.
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Christian Geinitz
Business correspondent in Berlin
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Helmut Buender
Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.
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After weeks of discussions about which nuclear power plants (NPPs) should continue to run and for how long, Olaf Scholz (SPD) ordered: The Economics and Environment Ministries must create the conditions for the three remaining nuclear power plants not to be shut down at the end of the year, but to be shut down by April 15 April 2023 can continue.
Paragraph 7 of the Atomic Energy Act, which regulates the shutdown sequence, is to be supplemented accordingly.
The draft law for this is already finished and is to be discussed by the cabinet this Wednesday.
Then the Bundestag deals with it.
A majority there is considered likely.
There is a lot of criticism among the Greens.
But the Greens parliamentary group leader is now also campaigning for a yes to the change.
If everything goes according to plan, things could be over by the end of November.
How important are the three nuclear power plants for the energy supply?
It is about the nuclear power plants Isar 2 by Preussen-Elektra / Eon in Bavaria, Neckarwestheim by EnBW in Baden-Württemberg and Emsland by RWE in Lower Saxony.
In the first half of 2022, the three systems contributed around 6 percent to German gross electricity generation, more than, for example, offshore wind.
The operators had prepared for the piles to shut down at the end of the year.
Energy can still be generated with the existing fuel rods, but less than during the regular runtime.
On average, 75 percent of the capacity is expected during the so-called stretching operation, which would correspond to around 4 percent of the entire German electricity production.
What do the network operators say?
In their most recent stress test, the transmission system operators had recommended continuing to use all existing nuclear capacities, as the CEO of the 50 Hertz group, Stefan Kapferer, made clear to the FAZ on Tuesday: "We transmission system operators clearly said in the stress test that all three nuclear power plants in the should continue to run in stretching operations next winter.
That is exactly what is happening now, and in this respect the Chancellor's decision corresponds to our recommendations." Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) originally only wanted to continue using Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim, and only in an operational reserve and not in the high-performance operation now ordered by Scholz.
But Kapferer also warns: “The big question remains as to what will happen next winter 2023/2024.
What does this mean for nuclear power plant operators?
You now have planning security.
Guido Knott, CEO of the Isar 2 operator Preussen-Elektra, welcomed Scholz's decision on Tuesday: "We now expect speedy legal implementation and will continue our preparations for continued operation." For Isar 2, that means the system Shut down at the end of this week in order to service the so-called pressurizer valves in good time before the end of the year.
"In this way we are making our contribution to security of supply," says Knott.
However, there could still be discussions about the costs.
When the plan was still that the power plants should only be held in reserve in case they could step in, the federal government had promised the companies that they would bear the costs of preparing for continued operation.
Well, since the nuclear power plants keep going in any case,
i.e. to produce and sell electricity, there is no longer any talk of it.
Theoretically, it would be conceivable that the companies would threaten the federal government with shutting down the power plants at the end of the year.
In the federal government, however, this risk is classified as low - after all, the profit margins on the electricity market are high and continued operation is worthwhile.