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ENERGY

Energy firms plan legal attack on nuke phaseout

Germany's leading energy companies are hiring top lawyers to mount a legal challenge against government plans to phase out nuclear power by 2022. The firms are hoping to secure massive compensation deals.

Energy firms plan legal attack on nuke phaseout
Photo: DPA

According to a report in news magazine Der Spiegel, the energy companies have hired top law firms to prepare their case, including Linklaters, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Clifford Chance and Gleiss Lutz.

A document drawn up by Gleiss Lutz says the energy companies own the surplus electricity generated by their nuclear power stations, which is therefore protected by property law in the German constitution.

The lawyers say the government has failed to supply “stringent reasons” for their new phaseout plan, drawn up over the past three months, and that the energy companies are therefore entitled to compensation – amounting to several billion euros.

If a deal is not struck with the government, the Swedish firm Vattenfall is even threatening to take a case to international courts over their nuclear reactor Krümmel, which was shut down permanently in mid-March.

The companies are also planning to challenge the government’s tax on nuclear fuel.

Horst Seehofer, head of the Christian Social Union, dismissed the legal challenges as hopeless. “We are not going to make a deal. Our actions are legally flawless and politically independent,” he told the Financial Times Deutschland.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet signed a package of bills this month that foresee Europe’s biggest economy being nuclear-free by 2022 – earlier than previously envisaged.

Germany’s nine reactors currently on line are due to be turned off between 2015 and 2022.

The seven oldest reactors were taken off-line after Japan’s massive March 11 earthquake and a tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing reactors to overheat and radiation to be released.

The Local/bk

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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