(Bloomberg) -- German companies EON SE and RWE AG dismissed calls to restart their decommissioned nuclear power plants, as the energy source becomes a political issue ahead of elections in February.
Germany switched off its last reactors in April 2023, sticking to a decision made 12 years earlier by former Chancellor Angela Merkel, following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. However, Merkel’s CDU opposition is now questioning the move, as Europe’s biggest economy also phases out coal and a plan to build new gas-fired power plants is delayed.
“We see no economically viable way to return the nuclear power plants in Germany,” EON’s Chief Financial Officer Nadia Jakobi said on an analyst call.
In an energy paper published last week, the conservative party called for an assessment to determine whether it is still possible to ramp up the mothballed plants “at a reasonable technical and financial cost, given the respective dismantling stage.”
RWE’s Chief Executive Officer Markus Krebber said it was “very, very unlikely that we’re going to bring them back,” when speaking on a call Wednesday, citing missing permits, qualified personnel and economical viability as hurdles. He added that renewables and nuclear were not a good pairing, as former were eating into the profitability of atomic power plants.
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