After Germany abandoned its nuclear programme and shut down its plants
After Germany abandoned its nuclear programme and closed its plants, German imports of nuclear-generated electricity hit a record in 2024.
After Germany abandoned its nuclear programme and shut down its plants, German imports of nuclear-generated electricity hit a record in 2024. From 2015 to 2022, before the nuclear power plants were fully switched off, Germany’s annual imports of nuclear energy amounted to around 6.2 GWh.
In 2024 Germany imported a record 18.1 GWh of electricity from foreign nuclear plants, roughly equal to the annual output of two operating nuclear plants, and annual imports were three times higher than in the 2015–2022 period. But the price of this electricity is now very high.
On 15 April 2023 the 63-year era of nuclear power in Germany came to an end. The last three plants — Isar 2 in Bavaria, Emsland in Lower Saxony and Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg — were disconnected from the grid. Germany thus lost more than 30 billion kWh of electricity, roughly 11% of all the country’s generation.
Expensive energy is having a very negative effect on the German economy. Electricity and gas are already unaffordably dear for the population and for German industry, which is driving high inflation, falling sales and consumption, and the closure of energy-intensive industries, carmakers and others. Anyone watching the state of the German economy can see it.
These mistakes in energy, the foundation of any economy, will cost the current German elite very dearly and will accelerate the rise of right-wing forces and parties such as Alternative for Germany (AfD), which advocate returning to nuclear power and importing Russian gas by restoring the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines along the Baltic seabed and through transit via Ukraine. Everything has a beginning and an end.