The electricity companies take the first step to extend the useful life of the Almaraz nuclear power plant. According to sources familiar with the situation, Iberdrola, Endesa and Naturgy have sent the notification this Friday to the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, whose first reactor is scheduled to close in November 2027.
This communication to the third vice president, Sara Aagesen, the head of energy matters in Spain, of her intention to continue with the plant in operation beyond the agreed closing date. The petition aims to continue operating Almaraz until 2030.
However, the formal request for an extension will not arrive, predictably, until the end of next week, just before the deadline in which companies have to send the decommissioning plan to the Nuclear Safety Council, which is October 31, ends. This was expressed by Iberdrola sources last Tuesday, at the end of the ordinary meeting held by the three companies that own the electricity generation infrastructure. For this first notification, the companies have already obtained the necessary internal endorsement.
The community of Almaraz assets still needs to meet next week, something like the CNAT shareholders meeting, in which they will have to endorse the extension request, which will later be sent to the ministry. Iberdrola is the one who leads this management, since it is the main owner. It holds 52.7% of the share capital of the nuclear power plant, while Endesa owns 36% and Naturgy 11.3% of the shares.
With this proposal, the electricity companies put the ball in the court of the Government, which has to be the one to decide whether to heed this request or prefer to maintain the current closure schedule.
In recent months, the electricity companies have tried to get the Government to make a gesture with the nuclear companies and accept some type of fiscal compensation, since they assure that the current tax burden suffered by the plants makes them unviable from an economic point of view.
However, the department led by Sara Aagesen has established three red lines. They demand that a hypothetical review of the closure schedule guarantees nuclear safety, security of supply and, above all, that it does not entail a cost for consumers and taxpayers.
In other words, the Government has refused to make any gesture that involves a fiscal compensation. As the President of the Government already said in his appearance in the Congress of Deputies, if companies make a request it will be studied, but first they must make the proposal. The companies were reluctant to make the request without compensation and in recent weeks they have assured that they have no choice but to follow the closure plans. However, they are finally going to make the request.
Companies consider that nuclear plants are essential for the future for reasons of strategic autonomy, to prevent the price of energy from rising and because they represent a reinforcement for the system in the event of potential supply disconnections such as the one that occurred in the blackout.
The electricity companies have agreed to expand Almaraz for three more years. However, there is no consensus between Iberdrola, Endesa and Naturgy on more general proposals regarding extending the useful life of the entire atomic park in Spain. However, the pressure exerted on closure in recent weeks has had an effect at the regional level. This same month, the president of Extremadura, María Guardiola, committed to reducing the ecotax by half if the useful life of the Extremaduran nuclear power plant was extended beyond 2027. This is a demand from Vox to approve the budgets. The electoral advance flies over the autonomous community as it has not yet closed an agreement with the party led by Santiago Abascal.
Along the same lines, the president of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazón, also eliminated the nuclear ecotax at the request of Vox, among other measures, to move forward the regional budgets and thus avoid a hypothetical electoral advance.
Apart from the request to extend the useful life, companies are obliged to continue with the requirements of the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN). According to a technical instruction issued last July, the companies must deliver the Almaraz dismantling plan on November 1, two years before the agreed definitive stoppage. This emanates from a ministerial order from 2020 in which the definitive cessation was already decreed in 2027. This order addresses the closure schedule agreed between companies and the Government in 2019. According to it, the first closure is that of the Almaraz reactor I in 2027 and would conclude in 2035 with the closure of the Trillo plant.
The closing calendar coincides with a potential change of Government in 2027 according to what the surveys say. The PP and Vox are in favor of maintaining nuclear energy, so the closure of Almaraz now would have disparate effects for the companies. It would affect Iberdrola the most, which owns more than 50% of Almaraz. However, the closure of Ascó and Vandellós is scheduled between 2029 and 2030. These plants are majority owned by Endesa. A change in energy policy would generate different effects.
