Dusseldorf Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) has been heavily criticized for his nuclear reserve plans since Monday evening. Now the head of the Eon nuclear subsidiary Preussen Elektra has written a fire letter to the ministry. This letter is available to the Handelsblatt, the “Spiegel” had first reported on it.
Preussen-Elektra boss Guido Knott writes: The ministry’s proposal “to send two of the three running systems to the cold reserve at the turn of the year in order to start them up if necessary is technically not feasible and therefore unsuitable for securing the supply contribution of the systems.”
Habeck was irritated by the letter: “I took note of the letter this morning with some surprise,” said the Green politician on Wednesday in Berlin. Preussen Elektra apparently did not understand the concept of the operational reserve.
It is not a matter of repeatedly starting up and shutting down the power plant, but of making a one-off decision as to whether the two nuclear power plants intended for this purpose are needed or not. This could happen in December, January or February, for example. “Obviously the technicians at Preussen Elektra didn’t care,” said Habeck.
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When Habeck presented the results of the power grid stress test on Monday, the Green politician not only surprised politicians from the ranks of the FDP and CDU with his decision. The operators of the nuclear power plants themselves were also taken by surprise.
Preussen Elektra does not consider “stand-by operation” to be possible
Habeck wants to keep two of the three nuclear power plants still in operation in Germany ready for emergencies in winter. This would keep them operational beyond the planned shutdown at the end of the year. FDP and CDU politicians, on the other hand, called for regular continued operation for a few years.
Instead, the nuclear power plants Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg would now be “transferred to a reserve”, the minister explained at the presentation of the stress test results. These would be used “if the situation requires it,” said the minister.
According to Habeck, they will “still be available 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 if necessary”. This also means that “all three nuclear power plants still connected to the grid in Germany are scheduled to go offline at the end of 2022”.
This announcement surprised the nuclear companies. They first heard about the possibility of reserve operation on Monday. According to industry circles, the availability of the piles was never an issue in technical discussions that took place beforehand.
There are reasons for this: “In their technical design, nuclear power plants are not reserve power plants that can be switched on and off variably,” Eon had clarified on Monday evening. The Baden-Württemberg energy group EnBW explained that clarity is now needed as quickly as possible. “We are currently in contact with the Federal Ministry of Economics to clarify the specific details and our questions,” said a spokesman on Wednesday when asked. Only then can the technical and organizational feasibility of the proposal currently under discussion be evaluated.
>> Read here: Much criticism of Habeck’s nuclear plan
So far, it doesn’t really seem clear what the Ministry of Economic Affairs means by “standby mode”. As early as August 25, the operators informed the ministry that “a flexible increase or throttling of the power is no longer possible” in the stretching operation, according to the letter from the Preussen Elektra boss.
This applies all the more if the plant is to be shut down completely, as Habeck’s plan envisages. Knott writes: “Then, with the limited possibilities of such a reactor core, a restart in advanced stretching operation is not feasible, and certainly not at short notice within a week.”
Operator offers ministry new talk
The nuclear power plants will be in regular stretching operation from autumn anyway. This describes the phased-out operation of a reactor at the end of the service life of the respective fuel rods. What has been discussed in recent weeks was stretching operations beyond the planned shutdown date of December 31st.
The nuclear companies had counted on that. This is exactly what the network operators had recommended on Monday evening with a view to the result of the current stress test. The four electricity transmission system operators 50Hertz, Amprion, Tennet and TransnetBW have used three scenarios to determine whether sufficient electricity will be available at all hours over the coming months. “Our message is very clear: It makes sense and is necessary to use all generation capacities,” said 50Hertz CEO Stefan Kapferer at the presentation of the results in Berlin. This also includes nuclear power.
While stretching operations would be feasible beyond the end of the year if a final decision was not made until autumn, it was “very difficult” to be in stand-by mode until February, for example, and to start up again in March, according to industry circles.
In his letter, Preussen Elektra boss Knott offers the ministry another technical talk in which he would like to personally explain the possibilities and limits of winter operation.
More: Runtime extension light – Two nuclear power plants remain as an emergency reserve