The two major electric owners of the nuclear power plants of Spain – endesa and Iberdrola – have opened a judicial war against the State on account of these facilities. While advocating in public for opening a negotiation with the government to expand the operating calendar of the five floors of the country – – these two companies have put their law firms against the government, against the public company that manages the radioactive waste (Enresa) and against the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), the body that supervises the activity of these centrals.
The fire opened it at the end of February Iberdrola, when it filed a lawsuit by the contentious-administrative route against Enresa for the rise in rates for the management of radioactive waste. He claimed, 324 million euros for damages. In the last week of June this Endesa strategy has joined, which claims another 454 million for the same reasons. In total, 778 million.
However, Endesa has not gone directly to justice. His lawyers have preferred to submit a patrimonial claim against the Ministry for Ecological Transition, which has the powers on energy, and against Enresa. Sources from the department directed by Vice President Third Sara Aagesem are limited to pointing out that “a patrimonial claim from Endesa and her defense is already in the hands of the State Advocacy.”
Known sources of this claim explain that their presentation will lead to a report of the State Council. If it is rejected, as in most cases, the electricity could open the judicial route, as it also usually happens with these lawsuits. The case of Iberdrola against Enresa is also in an initial phase and the State’s law is also preparing its response to demand.
In both cases the root of the problem is in the rates that the owners of the nuclear must pay so that the public company Enresa assumes the multimillionaire invoice to treat its radioactive waste. The national and European regulations are based on the principle of those who pollute pay, that is, those that generate a residue must assume their management. And in the case of nuclear industry waste, they are, in addition to dangerous, very expensive to treat.
The government, approved a year ago. Shortly after, Iberdrola and Endesa threatened how they have finally presented by the increase.
In addition, in September 2024, the new radioactive waste plan also resorted to the Supreme Court, which had not been updated since 2006. The main argument in all cases is an alleged breach of the contract in which they would have incurred inresa and the government. That contract referred to by the electric is the protocol that they signed in 2019 with the public company in which the closing calendar was established, which will start with the disconnection of the first reactor of the Almaraz nuclear power plant in 2027 and will conclude with Trillo in 2035. In addition to setting that orderly closing route, which then served to update the radioactive waste plan, a stop was established. Ascent of the rate to manage those waste, which would now have breached the Executive, according to the reasoning of the companies.
But between 2019 – when the protocol was signed – and 2023 – when the new waste plan was approved – there was a determining change, since the government ruled out that radioactive waste of more intensity and danger, fundamentally, the fuel spent, were stored in a single deposit. It will be, instead, seven warehouses (located in the locations in which the nuclear plants have been operating) those that keep those waste for at least the next five decades.
The Government opted for that the solution of the seven stores. And that multiplication of silos has had an impact on costs and, therefore, an increase in the rates that now denounce the electricity.
Against the CSN
The cost of waste management is one of the factors that make competitiveness to nuclear against other technologies, such as renewables, which complicates their viability except that the State between the rescue.
In fact, those renewables are already expelling the nuclear market for many moments of the year. The companies that own the centrals have chosen to connect and disconnect the reactors based on prices. To regulate this type of unusual operations (until now these plants had always operated in Spain at full power when they were available), in 2024 the Nuclear Safety Council approved a technical instruction in which it established the requirements so that these stops could be carried out. But CSN sources explain that at the end of June the companies that own the centrals have resorted to the judicial means of these instructions.
They have done so in this case, and arguing failures in the procedure of approval of that technical instruction, through the groups of economic interest that manage the centrals of Ascó, Vandellós, Almaraz and Trillo (Anav and CNAT), the same sources point out.
Almost constant pressure
These claims and demands are produced in a pressure context from the pronuclear sector to expand the plants closure calendar. This route was agreed with the owners. Endesa and Iberdrola are the majority shareholders, but they also have participations in this business Naturgy and EDP. And not all have the same interest in continuing the nuclear business.
At the moment, the four have not agreed a joint proposal for the modification of the calendar. Only Iberdrola and Endesa sent a letter. But the government insists that there is no concrete proposal and that, in any case, it must be agreed by the four owners.
In addition, they have drawn an impassable line if that formal negotiation is opened at some point: “the taxation and costs of waste management will not fall on consumers.” And the owners insist that these loads should be reduced, cons that Endesa and Iberdrola have opened a millionaire judicial war. Asked by this newspaper, neither of the two companies has made any comments on the demands and claims.
