The president did what he does best: put the headline where he wanted it: “Nuclear power, no thanks…” But he didn’t rule out any scenario. This is how several government sources explain Pedro Sánchez’s invitation to electricity companies to propose a minimum extension of the nuclear power plant decommissioning schedule beyond 2035, if they so wish. “It will be studied,” he warned Wednesday during the plenary session of Congress debating the major power outage of April 28, as long as it doesn’t result in a reduction in revenue for the Ministry of Finance and the National Waste Management Company (Enresa) or an increase in electricity bills for consumers.
This means that operators will continue to pay a high tax to Enresa during the extension. However, Iberdrola, Endesa, Naturgy, and EDP appear unwilling to do so, fearing that this would disadvantage nuclear power generation compared to renewables (wind and solar), as well as hydropower and combined cycle (gas). In June 2024, the Ministry for Ecological Transition increased the tax on radioactive waste by 30%, based on the polluter pays principle: from 0.798 cents per kWh (€7.98/MWh), which the companies had previously paid for waste management, to 1.036 cents per kWh (€10.36/MWh).
The companies are demanding that the government reconsider this increase following the major power outage. They argue that Spain’s electricity supply cannot be guaranteed without the production of their operating plants – Almaraz, Vandellós (I and II), Cofrentes, Ascó (I and II), and Trillo, which together account for 20% of the national energy mix. This comes at a time when forecasts for electricity demand in the coming years are rising due to the planned establishment of data protection centers (DPCs), green hydrogen, and other electricity-intensive industries in Spain.
The decommissioning plan, agreed in 2019 between the government, Enresa, and the Association of Electricity Companies, stipulates that the dismantling of the Almaraz power plant (Cáceres) will begin in November 2027, unless this hypothetical agreement paralyzes it in extremis. The Council of Ministers put the initial work out to tender shortly before May 28, and the decommissioning of Trillo (Guadalajara) is scheduled for 2035. The operators have until May to formalize their request to postpone the schedule, but are unlikely to do so if the executive branch appears to be taking a back seat to reduce costs.
In this context, the conflict for the government is not only economic, but above all political and social: the extension is being demanded by the electricity companies, the PP, Junts per Catalunya, Vox, and CEOE, but also by socialist associations that risk a great deal in the closure and are under intense pressure from their electorate. This particularly affects Juan Ignacio Gallardo’s PSOE in Extremadura with Almaraz and Emiliano García Page’s PSOE in Castile-La Mancha with Trillo. Although the PSOE—Salvador Illa’s silence is notable—is aware that 60% of the energy consumed in Catalonia comes from the Ascó and Vandelló nuclear power plants, and that Junts and Carles Puigdemont are pushing to avoid the closure, even its partner ERC has taken a stand.
Thousands of jobs are at stake. This could ultimately force Pedro Sánchez to reach an agreement with the association of electricity companies to avoid being publicly branded as “the one who shut down Almaraz” – especially since parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2027, unless they are brought forward.
“Listening to him the other day, I had the impression that he was signaling to the electricity companies, without saying it directly: ‘Okay, I’ve maintained my commitment to renewable energy with a minimum extension after the blackout, and in return, I’ll lighten your balance sheets a bit.'” This is how a senior Socialist official from one of the regions affected by the nuclear freeze describes the situation. This source acknowledges that growing social pressure is being felt in the affected areas, based on a circumstance that didn’t exist before May 28 and could change Spain’s traditional anti-nuclear sentiment: the need for a supply guarantee.
“The supply guarantee has become a very powerful argument,” ironically remarks a source from a PP regional government, echoing arguments that can be heard quietly within the PSOE these days. “Deep down, we are all against nuclear power, and these power plants will die, just as the coal-fired power plants died, and no one misses their dirt and pollution.”
Pollution. But in the end, people want to be offered a safe, renewable, hydroelectric, nuclear, or even a one-man dynamo guarantee.”
The question is not whether “Spain will be green or not,” as Third Vice President Sara Aagesen says, but at what pace this can happen; especially with a direct competitor like France, which appears unwilling to expand its electricity interconnection with Spain beyond the very advanced work on the submarine link through the Bay of Biscay. Currently, this link only reaches three gigawatts, and by 2030, it is planned to reach 15 gigawatts between the two countries – a European Union requirement that will be difficult to achieve at this pace.
France is playing on the counterattack. Government sources admit to Vozpópuli that opposition to a third link through Aragon—alongside those of the Basque Country and Catalonia—is meeting with strong opposition from the mayors and prefects of the Pyrenees, as the northern slope of the mountain range separating the two countries is much more “abrupt” and vertical than the south. In other words, the required work is also more invasive to the landscape. In the face of these protests, Spain is proposing a tunnel through the center of the Pyrenees, but the truth is, it will never be realized.
For two decades, no president of the French Republic, not even the current one, Emmanuel Macron, has shown the slightest interest in overcoming these socio-political difficulties and accelerating a project. In fact, all sources consulted acknowledge that Spain currently produces cheaper electricity than French nuclear power – which has 56 reactors – and that the lack of interconnection allows the neighboring country to offer itself as an alternative location for those choice-intensive industries (DPC and others) that primarily require a guaranteed supply.
This competitive imbalance in the European market is another argument used by Spanish electricity companies in their dialogue with the government to reconsider the closure of Spain’s five nuclear power plants in light of the events of the major blackout on May 28, industry sources acknowledge.
