Spain extends top nuclear plant

The Spanish government has extended operations at the Almaraz nuclear plant by more than two years until June 2030, according to an order published in the official gazette on Friday.

Under Spain’s plan to phase out its five nuclear power plants by 2035, the two reactors in Almaraz were due to be the first to begin decommissioning in 2027.

The extension does not affect the rest of the decommissioning schedule, the document said, although some analysts expect other plants’ operations will also be prolonged.

A widespread blackout in Spain and Portugal in April 2025 revived the debate over nuclear power in Spain. The government’s order, however, did not refer to the outage, citing instead the more recent impact of the Iran war on disrupting fossil fuel supplies.

The government’s decision follows an extension request filed last year by the plant’s owners, Iberdrola (IBE.MC), opens new tab, Endesa (ELE.MC), opens new tab and Naturgy (NTGY.MC), opens new tab, and a favourable report, with some conditions to be met, issued last month by the country’s nuclear safety council.

GOVERNMENT STILL BACKS ZERO-CARBON ECONOMY
Spain’s Socialist-led government has set out ambitious green targets, championing a speedy transition to a zero-carbon economy and basing energy policies on an extensive deployment of renewable energy such as solar and wind.

Nuclear plants generate carbon-free energy and provide steady baseload power to supplement intermittent renewable power.

The document published on Friday said the extension of the nuclear generation would limit the deployment of renewable energy sources by just 1.4pc compared with current climate plans. Natural gas-fired power generation should decline by 7pc.

The industry has long campaigned for lower taxes for nuclear energy, which accounts for about one-fifth of Spain’s total power generation, saying the taxes hinder the plants’ competitiveness. The extension is not accompanied by any tax reduction and would not mean extra costs for taxpayers, the Energy Ministry said.

RBC ?analysts said in a note the decision, which was ?widely expected, “should imply the automatic extension of the remaining Spanish nuclear plants” due to the logistical difficulty of simultaneously ?dismantling several nuclear plants.