Germany has been without nuclear power plants for a year

A year ago, on 15 April 2023, the three last nuclear reactors in Germany ceased operating. At the time, nuclear power plants were producing only around five percent of Germany’s electricity. The reactors at the Emsland plant in Lower Saxony, Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg and Isar 2 in Bavaria were shut down. They had originally been scheduled to close at the end of 2022, but in response to the energy crisis, lawmakers extended their operation at the government’s proposal.

In May 2011, the government of conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to end nuclear power generation in Germany. The decision was prompted by the accident at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. Until then, nuclear power had accounted for 25 percent of Germany’s electricity generation. Eight of the 17 nuclear power plants then in operation were shut down in 2011, while another 19 had already been permanently closed by that time.

Germany stopped generating nuclear power after 62 years. Nuclear power expanded in the country following the oil crises of the 1970s. In 1957, scientists from the Technical University of Munich started up the first nuclear reactor to generate electricity in Garching. The first commercial nuclear reactor in Germany began operating in 1961 in Kahl am Main.

Mistrust of nuclear power among German politicians and the public grew after serious accidents at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States (1979) and at Chernobyl in Ukraine (1986). As a result, Helmut Kohl’s governments did not propose building any further nuclear facilities in the 1980s, and the last German nuclear power plant, in Neckarwestheim, was completed in 1989.

Germany is now relying primarily on renewable energy sources. They generated 55 percent of the country’s electricity last year, and Germany aims to obtain at least 80 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030. Wind power plants, particularly onshore ones, accounted for a record share of renewable generation.