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Germany Pulls Plug On Nuclear And Coal Power Plants

Germany now has just three operational nuclear power stations left – and at the end of this year there will be none.

Germany once sourced up to around a quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy generated by 17 plants. While there has always been significant opposition to nuclear power in Germany, the catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan in 2011 was a game-changer. In May that year, the Merkel government announced Germany would close all of its nuclear power plants by December 2022 – and just six remained operational last year.

While this has unfortunately provided an extended lifeline for fossil fuels, just over 43 percent of Germany’s total electricity in 2010 came from coal – and that had dropped to about 27 percent in 2021 thanks to renewables.

While the share of renewables in electricity production in Germany dropped from about 44 percent in 2020 to just under 41 percent (estimated) in 2021 – largely due to a drop in wind power output – that was still slightly more than in 2019.

Germany’s new coalition government recently committed to boost the 2030 target share of renewables from 65 percent to 80 percent, and for all coal-fired power generation to have ceased by that year. The 2030 solar power capacity target would be doubled to 200 GW and offshore wind increased 50% to 30 GW.