Spain Doubles Down On Plan To End Nuclear Power By 2035; PM Sánchez Bets On Renewables

Spain will shutter all of its remaining nuclear power plants by 2035, the government confirmed on Wednesday, as part of its aggressive energy plan for the future.

The Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez approved a measure establishing national nuclear waste management policy, paving the way for the decommissioning and dismantling processes to officially begin in 2027. The seven currently operational reactors will be decommissioned in successive order.

The removal of radioactive waste and dismantling of power plant facilities will cost an estimated €20.2 billion ($22.4 billion) to be paid by the plant’s operators “in accordance with the principle of ‘those who contaminate, pay,'” as the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition (equivalent to the U.S. Department of Energy) said in a press release.

Spain’s plan to end its nuclear power program was originally introduced in 2006 under the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party (PSOE). The country currently has one reactor that has been fully dismantled in northern Castille, and another that is in the dismantling process located to the east of Madrid.

The nuclear phase-out plan was a contentious issue during the campaign period leading up to the July general election that handed Sánchez of the PSOE a new mandate. The right-leaning People’s Party vowed to reverse the plan, citing energy security concerns.

Spain’s nuclear power facilities account for about one-fifth of the country’s power supply for electricity generation. Nuclear energy was the third largest energy source behind natural gas and wind in 2022.

Sánchez’s government hopes to replace nuclear capacity with new renewable energy installations. Solar and wind power accounted for over 50% of Spain’s total electricity generation in 2023, up from 42% in 2022.

Spain was the second largest installer of photovoltaic solar facilities in Europe in 2023, behind only Germany. The government aims to increase the country’s share of renewable energy power generation to 81% by 2030.

The reiteration of Spain’s nuclear phase-out policy comes just weeks after a pledge at COP28 by the U.S., United Kingdom and France to triple global nuclear power capacity by 2050.

Spain’s Ministry of Ecological Transition did not immediately respond to a request for comment from International Business Times.