Germany will leave in a “reserve” situation until April 2023 two of the last three nuclear power plants in the country, which according to the nuclear blackout schedule should be disconnected at the end of this year. These are the conclusions of the so-called “resistance test” on the country’s energy situation presented by the Minister of Economy and Climate Protection, the green Robert Habeck, with the rank of vice chancellor in the tripartite between social democrats, environmentalists and liberals of Olaf Scholz. According to their plans, it will be the plants of Isar 2, in Bavaria, and Neckanwestheim, in Baden-Württemberg (both “Länder” in the south of the country), which will remain in this situation for four more months than planned, while that the one in Emsland, in Lower Saxony (center), will be disconnected this year. This represents a new modification in the plans to abandon this source of energy, promoted first by the Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 2000, with the Greens as allies, and recovered in 2011 by the conservative Angela Merkel, as a result of the catastrophe of the Japanese central Fukushima. Scholz had left open a few weeks ago the possibility of prolonging the existence of the last three plants based on the results of these tests and once the energy situation in the country has been evaluated. “The results of the stress test suggest that, in the event of an emergency situation in the winter of 2022/23, it is convenient to keep these two plants in the south of the country in reserve,” said Habeck when presenting the conclusions. The Minister of Economy and Climate Protection also considered that this situation will not last beyond those four months, since the “energy situation” will be “very different” for the following winter. “We are not moving away from the line of abandoning nuclear energy, as it is regulated,” said Habeck, who emphasized that these plants will remain in a “reserve” situation. The German government coalition has maintained divergent positions on the punctual abandonment of nuclear energy. While Scholz’s Social Democrats were in favor of an extension limited to a few months, their liberal partners were betting on keeping them connected until at least 2024 or even reactivating some plants that had been disconnected last year. Related news The Greens, a party for which the farewell to nuclear energy is part of its founding essences, rejected the need to modify the plan for the definitive blackout, since the three active plants provide barely 6% of the total energy consumption. However, part of the green party was no longer completely ruling it out amid insecurity stemming from reduced Russian gas supplies. Germany has succeeded in lowering its energy dependency on Russia since the start of the Ukraine invasion. If in February 55% of total gas imports came from that country, now the percentage dropped to 9%, after being replaced by shipments from Norway and the Netherlands. The gas deposits are currently at 85% of their capacity, a level that was expected to be reached in October, while by November the goal is to reach 95%, considered necessary to guarantee supplies for the entire winter.