The Plenary of the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) approved this morning to extend the activity of the Almaraz nuclear power plant for three more years, until 2030. This is what the owners of the plant, Iberdrola, Endesa, and Naturgy, had requested. This position of the Nuclear Safety Council was mandatory, but it does not yet represent the final step for the plant to extend its operational life. From now on, it is the Government who must make the final decision.
The decision was made by four votes in favor, those of President Juan Carlos Lentijo, Vice President Pilar Lucio, and members Javier Dies and Silvia Calzón; and one abstention, that of member Francisco Castejón, appointed at the proposal of Podemos.
The technicians’ report on the plant’s closure was completed in mid-June, as already published by “La Vanguardia,” and the Plenary of the Nuclear Safety Council was scheduled to address it on the 24th of that month, but since then there have been various postponements due to the reluctance of some members leading the governing body of the institution, who have repeatedly questioned the risks that could arise from this extension and caused the final decision to be removed from the agenda of subsequent meetings until finally, today the decision was made.
This is an authorization that establishes a new condition, which is to ensure staffing with functions related to safety for the extension period, that is, 2028-2030. To make the decision, the report was based on 29 documents that consider the aging status of the structures, the life management plan, and the environmental qualification of the equipment.
In this way, the five members of the CSN plenary had sufficient technical information to make a decision that is significant for Spain. Because the fact of extending or not the Almaraz nuclear power plant goes beyond this specific infrastructure. According to the companies owning Almaraz, the future of this infrastructure affects the rest of the country’s nuclear plants. This CSN decision and the subsequent Government decision, which will be definitive, will determine whether Spain abandons nuclear energy or not at a critical moment from the perspective of system stability, supply guarantee, and energy sovereignty.
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What the CSN has done is determine whether the facility has the appropriate safety conditions to continue operating. To establish its opinion, it has gathered information from the plant management on how it will manage the aging of the facilities during these three additional years of the plant’s life.
The truth is that, since this process began with the extension request, the sector expected a favorable opinion from the CSN. Both for considering that it met safety conditions and for the comparison with a twin plant of Almaraz, located in Virginia (USA), which recently obtained authorization to continue operating.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition is awaiting receipt of this report to renew the plant’s authorization until June 8, 2030. “Following the established procedure, the ministry will study the CSN report and all the information that is part of the file before making a decision on the plant’s operating authorization,” ministry sources indicate.
