Spain under pressure to abort nuclear energy phase-out

Spain, a European renewable vitality chief, is coming below growing stress from the fitting and enterprise teams to reverse its plans to section out its nuclear energy crops by 2035.

On the peak of enthusiasm for nuclear energy within the Nineteen Eighties, Spain had eight nuclear crops offering 38 % of its electrical energy. Now it has 5, offering 20 % of its energy.

Beneath the nation’s nuclear phase-out plans, agreed in 2019 below the federal government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, these remaining crops can be closed over the following decade, because the nation focuses as a substitute on inexperienced vitality sources corresponding to photo voltaic and wind power.

However because the deliberate closure of the nation’s oldest and strongest atomic plant at Almaraz in western Spain in 2027-28 approaches, calls are rising for Spain to observe within the footsteps of different European international locations which can be reviving their nuclear energy.

The 2 reactors at Almaraz generate round seven % of the full electrical energy produced within the European Union’s fourth-largest economic system.

Spain’s choice to shut its crops “was adopted in a completely different industrial, geopolitical, social and economic context” and now not is sensible with out “a viable alternative,” the Nuclear Discussion board foyer group that represents the sector mentioned in a press release.

Atomic energy can be wanted to satisfy Spain’s electrical energy wants as demand will soar on account of rising gross sales of electrical autos and the enlargement of knowledge facilities to accommodate the better use of AI, it added.

‘Completely essential’

Ignacio Sanchez Galan, the chairman of Spanish vitality firm Iberdrola, which operates a number of atomic energy crops in addition to renewable vitality farms, mentioned nuclear vitality is “absolutely necessary” to maintain the lights on.

Iberdrola is considered one of round 30 corporations that signed a manifesto final month calling for the extension of Spain’s nuclear power plants.

“Dismantling this infrastructure prematurely would cause irreparable economic and social damage,” the manifesto mentioned.

Since gas prices spiked with the Ukraine conflict, international curiosity within the nuclear sector is at its highest because the oil crises within the Nineteen Seventies, in keeping with the Worldwide Power Company.

The Netherlands and Sweden are planning to construct new nuclear crops, whereas Belgium’s new conservative-led authorities has reversed a two-decade pledge to section out atomic energy.

Italy’s cupboard final month opened the door to a return to nuclear energy, 25 years after the closure of its final reactors.

‘Not prepared’

Spain’s conservative fundamental opposition Folks’s Get together (PP) has added to the stress.

It has tabled a movement, which has been accredited by the parliament, calling on the federal government to maintain the nuclear crops in operation.

Throughout a go to to the Almaraz plant final month, the influential PP head of Madrid’s regional authorities, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, mentioned the measure was essential to “protect jobs and energy sovereignty” and warned that Spain was “not prepared to exchange nuclear energy“.

The worth of electrical energy in Spain may rise by 23 % for home shoppers and by 35 % for companies if the nation’s nuclear reactors are shut down, in keeping with a examine by PwC.

Abandoning nuclear energy is a “big change” as a result of it means changing a “constant and predictable energy supply” with “more volatile” sources corresponding to photo voltaic and wind, Enric Bartlett, a professor of environmental legislation at Esade Regulation College, instructed AFP.

But it surely must be potential to shut the remaining nuclear crops “without disruption” if Spain has the correct amount of put in capability to generate electrical energy by different means by 2035, and the “appropriate transport and storage networks”, he added.

“There will have to be a significant increase in investment,” Bartlett mentioned.

© 2025 AFP