NECKARWESTHEIM (dpa-AFX) - In order to be able to supply Germany with electricity over the next few months, energy supplier EnBW is shutting down the Neckarwestheim 2 nuclear power plant at the turn of the year. The 193 fuel elements will then be reassembled during a short shutdown of two to three weeks. After the restart, the reactor in the Heilbronn district is expected to produce up to 1.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity by mid-April. Without the new configuration of the fuel elements, only about a third of that would be possible, the head of the nuclear power division, Jörg Michels, had explained.

Unit 1 in Neckarwestheim had gone into operation in 1976. In 2011, it was among the first to be shut down after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Unit 2 went online in 1989. Actually, it should have been one of the last three nuclear power plants in Germany to be finally shut down on New Year's Eve. But the energy crisis resulting from the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine caused the German government to rethink: The operating time for the reactor and the reactors Emsland in Lower Saxony and Isar 2 in Bavaria was extended until mid-April. From EnBW's point of view, a further extension should have been decided long ago in order to be able to implement it technically./kre/DP/nas