Energy policy is, within the Federal Government, the responsibility of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi)). The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit (BMU)) is responsible for environmental policy within the Federal Government.

The major aim of the German energy policy is an affordable, secure and environmentally friendly energy supply. This aim shall be reached through the ongoing energy transition, where it is planned to produce energy on a sustainable basis and to maintain one of the most energy efficient and environmentally compatible economies in the world. The energy transition includes the following steps:

• The last German nuclear power plant (NPP) will be taken off-grid by 2022.

• A greater share of renewable energy shall be used — according to the energy concept, 60% of the energy supply and 80% of electricity should be generated by renewables by 2050.

• Germany shall become less dependent on oil and gas imports.

• In line with the Paris Agreement, the emissions of greenhouse gases, which are harmful to the environment, shall be reduced by 80% to 95% by 2050.

• Energy needs shall be reduced by more economical and efficient use.

• The restructuring of the energy supply shall be a driver of innovation for Germany as an industrial base in order to generate growth and create sustainable and secure jobs.

In 2000, the Federal Government and the energy utilities agreed to phase out nuclear energy use for commercial power generation, and the Atomic Energy Act was amended accordingly in 2002. A legal ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants was enacted. Each nuclear power plant was assigned a residual electricity volume such that the total output of the respective plant corresponds to an average 32 year lifetime. As electricity volumes can, in principle, be legally transferred between plants, it was not possible to forecast precise shutdown dates. In 2011, in the light of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP), final shutdown dates for all operating German NPPs have been set (for more details see Section 2.1.1).

To meet the challenges of the energy transition, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy has launched a Ten Point Energy Agenda (see http://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Dossier/energy-transition.html).

Germany is one of the largest energy consumers in the world and is currently expanding generation capacities for primary energy from renewable sources as part of the implementation of its energy transition, and to comply with the obligations inherent in the Paris Climate Agreement signed in 2015. However, around 80% of its primary energy consumption still has to be provided by fossil fuels. Germany must import the majority of the energy resources it requires. The most significant importing countries for fossil fuels to Germany are the Russian Federation, Norway and the Netherlands.

Around 2% of crude oil production and 10% of natural gas production are derived from domestic production. A withdrawal from subsidized hard coal mining is planned for 2018. Of all the energy resources in Germany, lignite is the only non-renewable energy resource which is available in large, economically extractable amounts — Germany supplies its own needs, and is the world’s largest producer and consumer of this resource.

The demand for natural uranium is covered almost entirely by imports. After the closure of the Wismut facility in East Germany in 1990, there has been no mined production of natural uranium in Germany.

An overview of the estimated available energy sources in Germany is given in Table 1. The remaining potential includes reserves (proven volumes of energy resources economically exploitable at today’s prices and using today’s technology) and resources (proven amounts of energy resources which cannot currently be exploited for technical and/or economic reasons, as well as unproven but geologically possible energy resources which may be exploitable in future).

TABLE 1: ESTIMATED AVAILABLE ENERGY SOURCES

¹ Including 70 million tonnes of shale oil resources.

² Identified resources (reasonably assured and inferred).

³ Renewables are given as installed capacity in 2016. EJ equivalent is calculated for a period of 10 years. It is noted that the projected production for a period of 10 years is calculated to be 0.7 EJ hydro and 6.8 EJ other renewables.

Source: Country Information [1].

Table 2 gives an overview of the primary energy consumption in Germany and of the energy production from German domestic resources.

TABLE 2: ENERGY STATISTICS

¹ Numbers refer to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) before reunification in 1990; numbers in parentheses refer to the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany).

² Energy consumption = Primary energy production + Net import (Import–Export) of secondary.

³ Solid fuels include coal and lignite.

⁴ Nuclear considered as imported energy in national energy balance.

Source: Country Information [2].

German electricity policy is based on three fundamental objectives: sustainability, security of supply and economic efficiency. The main challenge will be the integration of an increasing number of plants generating electricity from renewable sources, including a large number of offshore wind farms in the Baltic and North Seas. Consequently, the German electricity grid and the electricity market are facing new challenges.

Since 1998, Germany has continued the process of liberalizing its electricity market. Currently, all customers are free to choose their own suppliers.

The Energy Industry Act (Energiewirtschaftsgesetz), together with secondary legislation enacted under it, specifies the regulatory framework governing grid access and transmission fees for electricity and gas. The objective is to provide the public with a secure, affordable, consumer-friendly, efficient and environmentally sound supply of grid electricity and gas. Enforcement lies with the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), which regulates electricity, gas, telecommunications, postal and railway networks spanning two or more federal states and network operators with more than 100,000 customers. Network operators with fewer than 100,000 customers are regulated by regulatory agencies in the individual German federal states. The main features of the legal framework relate to network access and transit fees, and separating network operation from companies’ other activities. The network regulator, a public agency under the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, has a clear legal mandate to keep down transit fees while assuring security of supply. Grid operators are required to operate a secure, reliable, high-capacity energy supply network, to maintain this network and to expand it in line with demand.

Generation

Germany’s electricity supply is undergoing radical change. At present, conventional energy sources (including nuclear) generate approximately 63% of Germany’s electricity. However, the ongoing expansion of renewable energy and the phase-out of nuclear energy for power generation will change the composition of the electricity mix. With 217 TWh in 2017, renewables accounted for 33.1% of Germany’s gross electricity production. Onshore and offshore wind provided 16.1%, biomass 7.0% and photovoltaic 6.1%.

There are more than 1000 commercial electricity producers in Germany. The four largest electricity producers are RWE AG, E.ON SE/Uniper SE, EnBW AG and Vattenfall GmbH, which contribute about 75% to the German electricity market.

Though demand for electricity is forecast to remain relatively flat, construction projects for power plants using conventional fuels and for those using renewables are currently in the planning, preparation or building phase in order to replace existing plants, particularly nuclear plants, slated for closure.

Transmission

Germany has a comparatively well developed and intricately meshed electricity grid. In the past, the four companies dominating electricity generation each owned their own transmission companies, which operated the extra high voltage transmission lines. Now, the transmission companies are legally unbundled companies (TenneT TSO GmbH, Amprion GmbH, TransnetBW GmbH and 50Hertz Transmission GmbH). They provide non-discriminatory third party access to their networks for all generators. All decisions on grid access and access fees can be appealed to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) or to the respective regional regulator (Länderregulierungsbehörde). Grid fees, which cover transmission operations and investments, are charged to distributor companies, which are then passed on to the end users through retail rates. Transmission system operators charge distribution companies via a ‘postage stamp’ rate, at a single flat rate per kW of maximum demand.

Under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (EEG)), grid system operators are required to connect plants generating electricity from renewable sources to their system at standard rates and to guarantee priority feed-in and transmission of electricity to such plants.

The extension of renewables, intensified transboundary power trading and new conventional power plants are the main reasons for the plans to modernize the existing transmission grid and to build up new extra high voltage transmission lines.

The total length of the German transmission grids is about 36 000 kilometres (km) of ultra-high voltage grid. At the moment, electricity is transmitted as alternating current (AC) with a maximum voltage of 220 kilovolts (kV) or 380 kV; In the future, new high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines are planned, with a voltage of up to 525 kV.

Germany’s grid is linked to its neighbours’ power grids via cross-border connections. The interconnection capacity is equivalent to about 15% of total capacity. Electricity is physically exchanged with nine neighbouring countries: Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. Some of these transmission lines are already HVDC systems (i.e. with Denmark) or are under construction (i.e. with Norway). In 2016, Germany exported around 80.7 TWh of electricity to its neighbours, while importing 33.6 TWh (these are preliminary values).

Distribution

At the level of the distribution grids, electricity is transmitted at high, medium and low voltages. The high-voltage grid is the link to the ultra-high voltage grid and distributes the electricity to urban areas (60 kV to 220 kV; grid length approx. 97 000 km). The medium voltage grid distributes the electricity to regional transformer substations or directly to large facilities (6 kV to 60 kV, grid length approx. 511 000 km). The low voltage grid distributes the power to end users (230 V or 400 V; grid length approx. 1 173 000 km). There are about 900 distribution system operators in Germany, mainly regional and municipal grid operators.

There is significant cross-ownership of distribution and retail in Germany’s electricity sector through the country’s many regional and local utilities, or Stadtwerke. The major electricity generating companies — E.ON/Uniper, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall — have stakes in a large percentage of Stadtwerke, but the National Competition Authority (Bundeskartellamt) has become more and more restrictive in its approval of such mergers.

Base load power is provided by hard coal, lignite and nuclear power plants, which typically run with a maximum number of operating hours, but can also be operated in load-following operation. These plants provide about 53% of the total electricity production. At present, the proportion of renewable energy in the electricity supply is about 30%. This value is an average for the whole year, though it can reach higher levels at peak times. On an hourly basis, the electricity proportion created by wind and photovoltaic is sometimes more than 60%. On the other hand, there are periods, such as long wind-free times in winter, when not much renewable energy is available. Phases with low renewable availability therefore need to be covered by facilities such as flexible conventional power stations to ensure the reliability of the power supply.

Table 3 gives an overview of the installed capacity of electrical plants in Germany, and of the gross electricity production in TWh. The values are reported as gross values.

Table 4 displays several energy related ratios.

TABLE 3: GROSS INSTALLED CAPACITY, ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION

¹ Numbers refer to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) before reunification in 1990; numbers in parentheses refer to the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany).

² Preliminary data.

³ Thermal includes hard coal, lignite, gas and oil, pump-storage facilities and other.

⁴ Water mills and storage plants.

⁵ Electricity transmission losses are not deducted.

Source: Country Information [2].

TABLE 4A: ENERGY RELATED RATIOS

¹ Numbers refer to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) before reunification in 1990; numbers in parentheses refer to the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany).

² Net import/Total energy consumption.

Source: Country Information [2].

In 1955, research and development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes began. Based on extensive international cooperation, several prototype reactors were constructed, and concepts for a closed nuclear fuel cycle and for the final storage of radioactive waste in deep geological formations were elaborated.

From 1956 to 1969, several nuclear research centres were founded in West Germany. Most of these research centres, as well as university institutes, were equipped with research reactors.

With the assistance of United States manufacturers, West Germany started to develop commercial nuclear power plants (Siemens/Westinghouse for pressurized water reactors (PWRs), AEG/General Electric for boiling water reactors (BWRs)). In 1958, the first West German NPP — a 16 MW(e) experimental nuclear power plant (Versuchsatomkraftwerk Kahl, VAK) — was ordered from AEG/GE and reached criticality in 1960. Domestic West German nuclear development began in 1961, with the order of 15 MW(e) pebble-bed high-temperature reactors (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor at Jülich, AVR) from the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Brown, Boverie & Cie. (BBC)/ Krupp (BBC, or Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. (ABB)). Power reactors with 250–350 MW(e) and 600–700 MW(e) were ordered between 1965 and 1970.

After about 15 years, the gap between the West German and the international technological state of the art was closed. The West German nuclear industry received the first orders from abroad, from the Netherlands (Borssele) and from Argentina (Atucha). In 1972, the construction of the world’s then largest reactor, Biblis A, with 1200 MW(e), started in West Germany. Between 1970 and 1975, an average of three units was ordered annually.

In 1969, Siemens and AEG founded Kraftwerk Union (KWU) by merging their respective nuclear activities. The domestic development of KWU nuclear power plants with PWRs started. Based on several years of operational experience, a standardized 1300 MW(e) PWR (the so-called ‘Konvoi’) was introduced, mainly to speed up the licensing process. Three Konvoi units started operation in 1988 and were the last NPPs built in West Germany.

The German Democratic Republic, i.e. East Germany, started to develop a peaceful nuclear energy programme with the assistance of the Soviet Union in 1955. In 1956, the Central Institute for Nuclear Physics was founded at Rossendorf. There, in 1957, a research reactor supplied by the Soviet Union started operation. The first East German 70 MW(e) NPP Rheinsberg, equipped with a Russian type PWR, was connected to the grid in 1966. Between 1974 and 1979, the Greifswald NPP Units 1 to 4 started operation, all equipped with Russian WWER-440/W-230 reactors. In 1989, Unit 5, a WWER-440/W-213 reactor, was in the process of being commissioned.

Following German reunification in October 1990, comprehensive safety assessments of the Soviet type NPPs were carried out. These analyses showed safety deficiencies in comparison with the current West German nuclear safety requirements. For technical and economic reasons, in particular uncertainties in the licensing process and also decreasing electricity consumption, it was decided to shut down these plants. Work on the nuclear plants under construction (Units 6, 7 and 8 at Greifswald with WWER-440/W-213 reactors and two WWER-1000 reactors near Stendal) was also abandoned.

Following the euphoria of the fifties and sixties, scepticism about nuclear power began to grow in the early 1970s. An increasing number of citizens were opposed to the risks of atomic energy, and opposed the further expansion of nuclear power plants. In West Germany, names such as Wyhl and Brokdorf (planned nuclear power plants), Gorleben (waste management centre), Wackersdorf (reprocessing unit) and Kalkar (fast breeder) are synonyms for the protests against nuclear power. After the Three Mile Island nuclear incident in Harrisburg, PA, in 1979, and finally after the disaster of Chernobyl in 1986, it became clear that the risks of nuclear power are not merely theoretical.

In 2000, the Government concluded an agreement with the electricity companies on a structured phase out of the commercial utilization of nuclear energy for electricity production. The Atomic Energy Act was amended accordingly in April 2002. A legal ban on the construction of new NPPs was enacted. Each nuclear power plant was assigned a residual electricity volume such that the total output of the respective plant corresponds to an average 32 year lifetime. As electricity volumes can, in principle, be legally transferred between plants, it was not possible to forecast precise shutdown dates.

Since 2010, the Federal Government has focused on an energy mix, in which conventional sources of energy are gradually replaced with renewable energies. For a transitional period, nuclear energy should remain an indispensable part of the energy mix and support the use of renewables. The Atomic Energy Act was amended accordingly in December 2010. The legal ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants remained valid. The operating lives of the 17 nuclear power plants, determined by the amount of electricity allowed for production, were extended by granting further electricity production rights grossly equalling an additional 12 years, on average. The extension was converted into volumes of electricity for each plant.

After the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi NPP on 11 March 2011, the German Federal Government, together with the Minister-Presidents of the German states (Länder) in which NPPs are operated, reviewed the safety of all German NPPs by the Reactor Safety Commission (Reaktor-Sicherheitskommission (RSK)) in close collaboration with the competent nuclear regulatory authorities of the states. Through an Ethics Commission on Secure Energy Supply, they also started a dialogue among German society on the risks involved in the use of nuclear power and on the possibility of an accelerated transition to the age of renewable energies.

Taking the results of the RSK and the Ethics Commission on Secure Energy Supply as well as the absolute priority of nuclear safety into account, the Federal Government terminated the use of nuclear energy by the year 2022. With the amendment’s entry into force in August 2011, the operating licences for power operation of eight nuclear power plant blocks were revoked. The remaining blocks were subsequently or will be permanently shut down in a phased approach by the end of 2022:

• 31 December 2015 for Grafenrheinfeld NPP;

• 31 December 2017 for Gundremmingen B NPP;

• 31 December 2019 for Philippsburg 2 NPP;

• 31 December 2021 for Grohnde, Gundremmingen C and Brokdorf NPPs;

• 31 December 2022 for Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim 2 NPPs.

Introduced in December 2010, the additional electricity volumes were withdrawn, returning to the electricity volumes as stipulated in 2002. Production of unused electricity volumes transferred from one NPP to another is possible until the shutdown date for the receiving NPP has been reached. For details, see Section 2.2.1 and Table 5B.

The organizations of the regulatory body are shown in Fig. 1.

The regulatory body is composed of the nuclear licensing and supervisory authorities of the Federal Government authorities and state government authorities.

By organizational decree, the Federal Government specifies the federal ministry competent for nuclear safety and radiation protection. Currently, this competence is assigned to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit (BMU)).

The licensing procedure for operation and decommissioning and the continuous regulatory supervision of the facilities lie within the responsibility of the individual federal states (see Table 4B). To preserve legal uniformity for the entire territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, the BMU oversees the licensing and supervisory activities of the state authorities regarding legality and expediency [5].

As subordinate authority to the BMU in the area of nuclear safety the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (Bundesamt für kerntechnische Entsorgungssicherheit (BfE)) supports the BMU technically and scientifically, especially in the execution of oversight with regard to legality and expediency, the preparation of legal and administrative procedures and in intergovernmental cooperation.

The BfE is the licensing authority for transportation and storage of nuclear fuel (including spent fuel and radioactive waste) whilst supervision is performed by the competent authority of the respective state. In addition, BfE will be responsible for the licensing and supervision of disposal facilities for radioactive waste. Furthermore, the BfE regulates the site selection process for a final repository, particularly for high-level radioactive waste, and supports the BMU in its activities pertaining to the final disposal of radioactive waste.

The subordinate authority to the BMU in the area of radiation protection is the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz (BfS)). The BfS supports the BMU technically and scientifically, especially in the solution of practical radiation protection problems and the assessment of technical and organisational measures in the area of radiological emergency preparedness.

The BMU receives regular advisory support from the Reactor Safety Commission (Reaktor-Sicherheitskommission (RSK)), the Commission on Radiological Protection (Strahlenschutzkommission (SSK)) and the Nuclear Waste Management Commission (Entsorgungskommission (ESK)). The commissions are independent and their members reflect the entire spectrum of scientific and technical opinions. Besides advising the BMU on issues of fundamental importance, they also initiate developments directed at furthering safety technology. The results of the deliberations of the commissions are formulated as general recommendations to the BMU and as statements on individual cases, which are then published.

The main expert organization advising the BMU on technical issues is the Global Research for Safety (GRS). This organization performs scientific research in the field of nuclear safety technology, predominately sponsored by federal funds. GRS also performs a limited amount of work by order of the licensing and supervisory authorities of the states.

Technical support organizations (Technischer Überwachungs-Verein (TÜV)) act on behalf of the state authorities. The involvement of authorized experts is based on special technical knowledge and independence. The authorities are not bound by the authorized experts’ evaluation results in making their decision

FIG. 1: Organization of the regulatory body.

Source: Country Information [5], updated.

TABLE 4B: THE LÄNDER LICENSING AND SUPERVISORY AUTHORITIES FOR NPPs (INCLUDING PROTOTYPE AND EXPERIMENTAL REACTORS)

In Germany, seven nuclear power plants (six PWRs and one BWR), with a total gross capacity of 10.0 GWe, are in operation. Table 5A shows the status of German NNPs. Figure 2 shows their geographical location and their status as of the end of May 2018.

According to the current legal situation, the licence for power operation will expire at fixed shutdown dates or even before if the electricity volume for that installation, as listed in the Atomic Energy Act or as derived from an allowable transfer of electricity volume, has been produced. Table 5B shows the residual electricity volumes of the German NPPs as of 31 December 2017.

In 2016, NPPs contributed approximately 13.1% to the gross electricity production, which corresponds to 84.6 TWh. The average availability of German NPPs is shown in Table 6.

In total, 46 research and training reactors were built and operated in Germany. At present, most research reactors are shut down or being decommissioned, though, seven research facilities — three with a thermal power of more than 50 kW(th) and four small training reactors — are still in operation.

Warning: Table 5 generated from PRIS contains the most current information, which can be inconsistent with information in a text when the report is not updated.

TABLE 5A: STATUS AND PERFORMANCE OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS (INCLUDING PROTOTYPE AND EXPERIMENTAL REACTORS)

FIG. 2: Nuclear power plants in Germany (including prototype and experimental reactors) as of 31 May 2018.

Source: Country Information [5], updated.

TABLE 5B: RESIDUAL ELECTRICITY VOLUMES OF GERMAN NPPs AS OF 31 DECEMBER 2017 [TWh]

¹ On 6 August 2011, the authorization to operate the NPP for electricity production expired.

² The NPP Grafenrheinfeld was shut down in June 2015.

³ The NPP Mülheim-Kärlich was shut down in September 1988. The electricity volume of the NPP Mülheim-Kärlich can be transferred to KKE, GKN2, KKI2, KBR, KRB-B, KRB-C.

⁴ The NPP Obrigheim was shut down in May 2005.

⁵ The NPP Stade was shut down in November 2003.

Source: Country Information [4].

TABLE 5C: AVERAGE AVAILABILITY OF GERMAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

1. Preliminary data

   Time availability: available operating time/calendar time.Energy availability: available energy/nominal energy.Capacity availability: energy generated/nominal energy.

   Source: Country Information [3].

According to the Atomic Energy Act, a licence for operating an NPP is only granted if the applicant proves that the necessary technical and organizational precautions for safe operation have been taken. During operation, the plant operator must fulfil his or her responsibilities continuously, which the licensing and supervisory authority verifies and ensures.

Planned modifications of an NPP are to be assessed systematically with regards to the impacts on the safety level of the NPP. Modifications with insignificant impacts on safety levels do not require a licensing procedure, but they do require accompanying inspections by the safety authorities within the framework of the supervisory procedure. Significant modifications of an NPP or its operations require a licence from the competent authority (see Section 3.1.2).

All operators of German NPPs are obliged to perform comprehensive quality management, based on provisions for quality and safety assurance specified in the safety requirements published by the BMU and in the nuclear safety standards of the Nuclear Safety Standard Commission (Kerntechnischer Ausschuss (KTA)). The supervisory authority controls the results of the audits performed by the plant operator, and the implementation of measures derived from it within the framework of on-site inspections. Ageing management (i.e. measures for maintaining quality over a long period of time) is an integral part of the quality requirements.

According to the Atomic Energy Act, safety reviews must be carried out every ten years and follow the standardized national criteria. Safety reviews consist of a deterministic safety status analysis, a probabilistic safety analysis and a deterministic analysis on physical protection of the plant. The results are then submitted to the supervisory authority and usually assessed by independent experts who act by order of the supervisory authority. The obligation to present the safety review results is lifted if the licensee makes the binding declaration to the licensing and supervisory authority that he or she is definitively going to terminate power operation at the plant no later than three years after the final date for submission of the safety review mentioned in the Atomic Energy Act. In addition to the dates for the final shutdown pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act, safety reviews will be performed in the future only for the two NPPs Gundremmingen C and Brokdorf. Safety reviews supplement the continuous supervision and inspection of NPPs. Findings from the safety reviews and increasing knowledge and requirements imposed on the authorities lead to safety related backfits and to improvement of the plant.

In the light of the events in Fukushima in 2011, the RSK performed safety reviews for German NPPs in operation [7]. In a summarizing assessment, the RSK concluded that compared with the Fukushima NPP, a higher level of precaution can be ascertained for German plants with regard to the electrical power supply and consideration of flooding events. Further robustness assessments showed that there is no consistent result depending on type or age of the plant to be revealed. At older plants, initially with lesser design requirements, emergency systems were upgraded in order to ensure the necessary safety functions.

Germany participated actively in the European Union’s stress test and in its follow-up process, initiated by the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG). During ENSREG workshops in April 2013 and 2015, it was stated that Germany’s NPPs had already completed significant enhancements to robustness ahead of the Fukushima events (e.g. filtered containment venting and mobile pumps). The German National Action Plan identified that further work was required in some technical areas which are relevant to the stress test. Some of these actions were completed in 2013, with some left to be completed in 2014/15/16. The National Report and the National Action Plan of Germany can be found at http://www.ensreg.eu/EU-Stress-Tests/Country-Specific-Reports/EU-Member-States/Germany.

Furthermore, Germany will participate in the first EU Topical Peer Review with the topic Ageing Management of Nuclear Power Plants, coordinated by ENSREG. A national assessment report is under preparation. For further information, see http://www.ensreg.eu/eu-topical-peer-review.

As of 30 April 2018, 29 nuclear power plants, including prototype and experimental reactors, had been permanently shut down. Of these, 22 facilities are being dismantled and returned to greenfield status, one facility is in safe enclosure and three facilities have already been completely dismantled and the sites returned to greenfield status and released from nuclear regulatory control. Further information (shutdown date and reason, etc.) is shown in Table 6. For decommissioning, a licence is required from the competent licensing authority of the state in which the nuclear installation is sited. The licensing and supervisory process is described in Sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2. The eight NPPs that lost their authorization for operation in August 2011 applied for decommissioning, and four licences for decommissioning have been granted. Six other nuclear power plants never commenced operation, as the projects were abandoned during the construction phase.

Each decommissioning project runs individually. The course of the project, the financing, the choice of the decommissioning strategy and many other boundary conditions depend strongly on the type of plant and the owner of the plant. NPPs and uranium enrichment and fuel assembly plants are usually overseen by energy supply companies. The licensees are obliged to continuously build up financial reserves for the decommissioning of their installations. On the other hand, research reactors, prototype and experimental reactors as well as prototype plants for fuel supply are mostly located in research centres or at universities. Their decommissioning is financed predominantly by the federal budget.

The decommissioning of the NPPs Greifswald and Rheinsberg of the former GDR (East Germany) is financed from the federal budget as well, as is the decommissioning of facilities for uranium ore mining and processing in the former GDR.

On 16 June 2017, the Act on the Reorganization of Responsibility in Nuclear Waste Management entered into force. Thus, the Federation is responsible for the implementation and financing of storage and disposal of radioactive waste. The operators transfer the financial means into a public law fund, which provides the Federation with the funds for the waste management steps to be carried out. In return, the spent fuel and radioactive waste, as well as the storage facilities defined in the Act, will be transferred to the Federation.

TABLE 6. STATUS OF DECOMMISSIONING PROCESS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS (INCLUDING PROTOTYPE AND EXPERIMENTAL REACTORS) AS OF 31 MAY 2018

See Appendix 2.

Safe operation of nuclear power plants is a top priority for the Federal Government, and consequently research in this field is continued and extended.

In 2016, the Energy R&D Programme of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi)) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)) supported research on nuclear safety and waste disposal with a total amount of €74.4 million.

Within the government, the BMWi currently provides approximately €21.4 million annually for reactor safety research, funding experimental or analytical studies of the plant behaviour of nuclear reactors under accident conditions, studies concerning the safety of pressure retaining components and the development of probabilistic safety analysis. Approximately a further €11.3 million is spent on final disposal and nuclear waste management research.

The BMBF promotes projects and institutions with funds of around €42 million, focussing on basic science issues regarding waste disposal, reactor safety research and radiation research. As a long term energy option, BMBF currently supports the development of fusion reactors through research projects and institutional funding (around €130 million in total).

Two prototypes of advanced reactor design were developed in Germany: the pebble-bed high-temperature reactor (Thorium-Hochtemperaturreaktor, THTR 300) at HRB/BBC and a fast breeder reactor (Schneller Natriumgekühlter Reaktor, SNR 300) at Interatom/Siemens. After successful commissioning and operation for some years, the THTR 300 was shut down. The SNR 300 was completed but never commissioned.

See Appendix 1.

As a Member State of the EU, OECD/NEA, and the IAEA, Germany supports various international programmes in nuclear safety and nuclear waste management. In direct international cooperation, Germany also supports projects and organizations such as licensing and supervisory authorities, technical support organizations and research institutes.

Germany currently participates in the following NEA joint projects, among others:

• NEA Advanced Thermal-hydraulic Test Loop for Accident Simulation (ATLAS) Project

• NEA Behaviour of Iodine Project (BIP-3)

• NEA Benchmark Study of the Accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (BSAF) Project

• NEA Cable Ageing Data and Knowledge (CADAK) Project

• NEA Cabri International Project (CIP)

• NEA Component Operational Experience, Degradation and Ageing Programme (CODAP)

• NEA Cooperative Programme for the Exchange of Scientific and Technical Information Concerning Nuclear Installation Decommissioning Projects (CPD)

• NEA Fire Incidents Records Exchange (FIRE) Project

• NEA Fire Propagation in Elementary, Multi-room Scenarios (PRISME-2) Project

• NEA Halden Reactor Project

• NEA Hydrogen Mitigation Experiments for Reactor Safety (HYMERES) Project

• NEA Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE) Project

• NEA International Common-cause Failure Data Exchange (ICDE) Project

• NEA Loss of Forced Coolant Project (LOFC)

• NEA Source Term Evaluation and Mitigation Project (STEM-2)

• NEA Studsvik Cladding Integrity Project (SCIP-3)

• NEA Thermal-hydraulics, Hydrogen, Aerosols, Iodine Project (THAI-3)

• NEA Thermochemical Database (TDB) Project

For project descriptions see http://www.oecd-nea.org/jointproj/

For information about regulatory authorities please refer to Section 2.1.2.

Germany is a federal state. The ‘regulatory body’ is composed of federal and state government authorities (see Fig. 1).

The Länder Committee for Nuclear Energy (LAA) is composed of representatives from the state nuclear licensing and supervisory authorities and from the BMU. It serves for the preparatory coordination of Federal and state authorities in connection with the execution of the Atomic Energy Act, the preparation of amendments and the further development of legal and administrative provisions as well as of the regulatory guidance instruments. In the interest of enacting nuclear law that is as uniform throughout Germany as possible, the competent nuclear licensing and supervisory authorities of the state and the BMU draft any regulations on the uniform handling of nuclear law in consensus. In the area of legislation, the LAA is an important instrument of early and comprehensive state involvement, which supplements the formal right of participation of the states in the legislative procedure of the Federal Council. The committee’s decisions are usually by mutual consent.

TABLE 6A: ASSIGNMENT OF THE REGULATORY FUNCTIONS TO THE NUCLEAR AUTHORITIES OF THE FEDERATION AND THE STATES

* This also means that the Federal Government may execute its power to decide the respective matter in hand itself, and initiate on its own authority the corresponding detailed examinations.

Source: Country Information [5].

Participants in the licensing and supervisory procedure for NPPs are shown in Fig. 3.

FIG. 3: Participants in the licensing and supervision procedure for nuclear power plants.

A licence is required for construction, operation, and essential modification of nuclear facilities, or for the operation and decommissioning of a stationary installation for the production, treatment, processing or fission of nuclear fuel. Pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act, licences for the construction of NPPs for the commercial production of electricity are no longer issued. Licensing procedures for NPPs are therefore only performed for the essential modification of existing NPPs and for their decommissioning.

The operating licences for existing NPPs are not limited in time and thus do not require renewal. The authorization for power operation of existing NPPs expires once the shutdown dates fixed in the Atomic Energy Act are reached or if the electricity volume for the respective plant, as stipulated in the Atomic Energy Act, including possible electricity volumes transferred from other plants, has been produced.

The actual details and procedure of licensing are specified in the Nuclear Licensing Procedure Ordinance. Here, the application procedure, with the submission of supporting documents and the participation of the general public, is described. Furthermore, the Nuclear Licensing Procedure Ordinance specifies the assessment of any environmental impact and the consideration of other licensing requirements (e.g. regarding the possible release or discharge of non-radioactive pollutants into the air or water).

The written licence application is submitted to the competent licensing authority of the state in which the nuclear installation is sited. On the basis of the submitted documents, the licensing authority examines whether or not the licensing prerequisites have been met. All federal, state, local and other regional authorities — according to circumstances, also authorities of other states — whose jurisdiction is involved shall take part in the licensing procedure. These include authorities responsible under the building and water codes for regional planning and for emergency response. The participation of the public was obligatory for construction licences. In the case of major modifications, the authority may waive public participation if the modification does not give rise to the concern that there might be adverse effects on the public. However, the public has to be involved if this is required pursuant to the Act on the Assessment of Environmental Impacts. The competent authority performs a final evaluation of the environmental impacts on the basis of the requirements in nuclear and radiation protection regulations. The final decision of the licensing authority is based on the entirety of application documents, safety evaluation reports by the authorized experts and, if available, a statement by the BMU and the authorities consulted as well as the findings from objections raised in the public hearing.

As in licensing, the prime objective of the regulatory supervision of nuclear installations is to protect the general public and workers in these installations against the hazards connected with the operation of the installation. Nuclear installations are subject to continuous regulatory supervision over their entire lifetime — from the start of construction to the end of decommissioning. Supervision is performed by the state authorities, on behalf of the Federation. Authorized experts called in by the supervisory authority have access to the nuclear installation at any time and are authorized to perform the necessary examinations and to demand pertinent information. In addition, the operators of NPPs have to supply operating reports to the supervisory authorities at regular intervals. Any events relevant to safety and to physical protection must be reported to the authorities. In addition to the continuous regulatory supervision, comprehensive periodic safety reviews are to be performed every ten years.

Under the Atomic Energy Act, the NPP operator’s liability for third party damage is unlimited. Furthermore, the Atomic Energy Act compels the operators of NPPs to secure their liability for damages which may arise from a nuclear incident (compulsory financial security). Pursuant to the regulations of the Nuclear Financial Security Ordinance the financial security to be provided for each operating NPP shall be €2.5 billion. Financial security may be ensured by third party liability insurance or other financial means such as private warranty. The Atomic Energy Act also stipulates that the Federation shall indemnify an NPP operator from any liability to pay compensation for nuclear damage to the extent such liability cannot be satisfied out of the financial security provided by the operator. The maximum amount of indemnification by the Federation shall be €2.5 billion.

The individual power utilities or their subsidiaries are the licensees of the NPPs. They are obliged by law to build up financial reserves to be prepared for the follow-up costs connected with the operation of a nuclear power plant, such as the decommissioning and dismantling of the installations, and the treatment and disposal of radioactive material, including spent fuel. The financial reserves are adjusted on an annual basis. The valuation of these reserves is regularly reviewed by independent accountants and the financial authorities.

For further information see Refs. [5] and [8].

[1] Energy Study 2016: Reserves, Resources and Availability of Energy Resources,Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR), Hannover, https://www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/Energie/Downloads/energiestudie_2016_en.pdf

[2] Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie, https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Artikel/Energy/energiedaten.html

[3] State and Development of Nuclear Energy Utilization in the Federal Republic of Germany 2016 (BfE-KE-02/17),

http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0221-2017091814397

[4] Announcement acc. to § 7 para. 1c Atomic Energy Act (AtG) — annual statement 2017 (Bundesanzeiger: 3 April 2018)

[5] Report under the Convention on Nuclear Safety by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Seventh Review Meeting in March/April 2017, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0221-2016100614132

[7] Reactor Safety Commission (Reaktor-Sicherheitskommission (RSK)) Statement, “Plant-specific safety review (RSK-SÜ) of German nuclear power plants in the light of the events in Fukushima-1 (Japan)”, adopted at the 437th meeting of the RSK on 11 to 14 May 2011

[8] Report of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Fifth Review Meeting in May 2015 under the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management,

http://www.bmu.bund.de/N51273-1/

Agreements with the IAEA

Multilateral safeguards agreements

Other relevant international treaties

Bilateral agreements concerning the safety of nuclear installations and radiation protection

Germany has concluded bilateral agreements on the safety of nuclear installation or radiation protection with the following 59 countries:

Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uzbekistan.

For further information, see Bilateral Agreements in chapter 1D of the Handbook on Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection.

National atomic energy authorities, Federation and states

Main power utilities

Manufacturers, services and other nuclear organizations

Nuclear research institutes

Coordinator Information

Name: Jenny Tuchtenhagen

Institution: Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste ManagementDirectorate-General Nuclear Safety and Supervision in Nuclear Waste Management

Contact Details: Tel.: +49 30 18333 – 1562Email: jenny.tuchtenhagen@bfe.bund.de