BERLIN: Germany shut down one of its seven remaining nuclear power plants on Tuesday as part of a planned phase-out of atomic energy production by the end of 2022.

Utility company EnBW said it had taken the Philippsburg Nuclear Power Plant off the grid after the licence to operate it expired at midnight.

Under Germany’s energy transition plan, the country aims to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources over the coming decades. The government agreed earlier this year to stop producing electricity from coal-fired plants by 2038 at the latest.

Proponents of nuclear power argue that shutting down the remaining reactors will endanger Germany’s energy security, making it more reliant on greenhouse gas-producing coal and gas and on electricity imported from neighbouring countries that still have atomic plants.

Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power delivered over 47pc of the electricity consumed from the public grid in Germany during the first six months of the year. Nuclear power accounted for about 13pc, according to the Fraunhofer Institute.

The 1,468 megawatt reactor that’s being shut down began operation in 1984. It is located 100 kilometres south of Frankfurt near the French border.

An older reactor at the same site, known as Philippsburg 1, was shut down for good in 2011, shortly after the German government agreed to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan.

Switzerland shut down a 47-year-old nuclear plant earlier this month.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2020