Spain extends Almaraz nuclear plant operations through 2030 (updated)
UPDATE 3-Spain extends Almaraz nuclear plant operations through 2030 Adds comments from source in paragraphs 7 and 15
By Pietro Lombardi
MADRID, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The Spanish government on Friday extended operations at the Almaraz nuclear plant until June 2030, according to an order published in the official gazette.
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 and 2028.
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 the future of nuclear power in Spain - which accounts for about one-fifth of Spain's total electricity generation - with energy companies and business lobbies calling for a review of the planned phaseout.
Multiple investigations blamed the blackout on a surge in voltage.
The government's order, however, did not refer to the outage, citing instead the more recent impact of the Iran war on fossil fuel supplies and prices.
An energy ministry source dismissed any link between the extension and the blackout.
The government's decision follows an extension request filed last year by the plant's owners, Iberdrola IBE.MC, Endesa ELE.MC and Naturgy NTGY.MC, 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.
Friday's document said the Almaraz extension would limit the deployment of renewable energy sources by just 1.4% compared with current climate plans. Natural gas-fired power generation should decline by 7%.
The industry has long campaigned for lower taxes for nuclear energy, 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.
The ministry source acknowledged that overlaps in the phaseout represented a challenge, but ruled out extensions for other plants for now.
(Reporting by Pietro Lombardi; editing by Charlie Devereux, Andrei Khalip and Barbara Lewis)