Decommissioning of Emsland plant clear to proceed

Friday, 27 September 2024

In August 2011, the 13th amendment of the Nuclear Power Act came into effect, which underlined the political will to phase out nuclear power in Germany. As a result, eight units were closed down immediately: EnBW's Phillipsburg 1 and Neckarwestheim 1; EOn's Isar 1 and Unterweser; RWE's Biblis A and B and Vattenfall's Brunsbüttel and Krümmel. The remaining reactors were scheduled to shut by the end of 2022.

However, in October last year, the German federal cabinet approved an executive decision by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to allow the country's three remaining nuclear power plants to continue operating beyond the end of 2022. It approved a draft amendment to the Atomic Energy Act which enabled the Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 plants to operate until 15 April 2023 at the latest.

RWE applied for permits for the decommissioning and dismantling of the Emsland plant in 2016 on the basis of Germany's nuclear phase-out policy. The Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment has now approved the individual procedural steps for the careful and safe dismantling of the plant after a thorough review. 

"We have waited a long time for this moment and will tackle our legal obligation to dismantle safely and quickly with a technically skilled and highly motivated team of our own staff and partner companies," said Steffen Kanitz, Head of Nuclear Energy at RWE Power AG.

Since its shutdown in April 2023, the Emsland plant has been in what is known as post-operation. During this phase, the conditions for the dismantling of the plant were created, such as the primary cooling circuit was decontaminated, systems and components that were no longer needed were taken out of service and the workforce was adjusted.

With the construction of a technology and logistics building on the Emsland site, RWE has been creating the necessary logistics space for plant dismantling since mid-2023. In the future, low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from the dismantling of the plant can be packed in final storage containers on-site and stored until it is handed over to the federal government for disposal.

The dismantling in accordance with nuclear law is scheduled to be completed in the second half of the 2030s.

Emsland - a 1400 MWe (gross) pressurised water reactor - entered commercial operation in June 1988, supplying around 3.5 million households with electricity each year.