Nuclear phase-out: Eon, RWE and Vattenfall have to be compensated – Handelsblatt

nuclear power plant Gundremmingen

The energy companies a “reasonable” compensation is due to the accelerated exit from nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster.

(photo: Reuters)

KarlsruheThere were eventful months in the first half of 2011. 11. March, it came at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan disaster. The impact shook the German nuclear industry. The former black-yellow Federal government introduced within a few months, a new law on the way, the accelerated in Germany, the nuclear phase-out and the end Of the controversial technology by 2022 sealed.
The decision was carried by a majority of the population – but she was also right?

“In Essence,” Yes, ruled today, Tuesday, the Federal constitutional court. The amendment was compatible with the basic law. The first Senate evaluated at the time the regulations “broadly as reasonable, and also the requirements of the protection of legitimate expectations and of the principle of equal treatment at the determination of content and limits of property”. In clear text: It was not an unlawful expropriation. The had criticized the nuclear companies Eon, RWE and Vattenfall in their constitutional complaints.

The German nuclear power plants and their remaining maturities

• After the reactor disaster of Fukushima in 2011, the Federal government took only a year before the agreed extension of the term for the nuclear power plants back and decided to make a gradual nuclear phase-out. Instead, at the earliest, 2036 now, the last reactors to go up to 2022 from the mains. Eight NUCLEAR power plant were laid in 2011, immediately silent.

• The Demolition will take years and cost billions – add to that the uncertain costs of the disposal of nuclear waste. The remaining terms of the operating reactors:

• owner and operator: EnBW

  rated power in megawatts: 1395

  remaining term to maturity: six years (1989 – 2022)

• main owner: EnBW

  rated power in megawatts: 1458

  remaining maturity: three years (1984 – 2019)

• main owner: Eon

  rated power in megawatts: 1475

  remaining term to maturity: for six years (1988 – 2022)

• main owner: RWE/Eon

  rated power in megawatts: 1344

  maturity: one year (1984 – 2017)

• main owner: RWE/Eon

  rated power in megawatts: 1344

  remaining term to maturity: five years (1984 – 2021)

• main owner: Eon

  rated power in megawatts: 1360

  remaining term to maturity: five years (1984 – 2021)

• main owner: RWE/Eon

  rated power in megawatts: 1400

  remaining term to maturity: six years (1988 – 2022)

• main owner: Eon/Vattenfall

  rated power in megawatts: 1440

  remaining term to maturity: five years (1986 to 2021)

The groups achieved but a partial success. The company is entitled to compensation. The Federal government must act to 30. June 2018 repair. “The permissible statutory property embodiment, the constitutionally required compensation scheme is missing here,” said Vice-President of the court, Ferdinand Kirchhof at the time of sentencing. With the Karlsruhe decision, the firm is awarded no money. It creates the basis for claims out-of-court to enforce, or in other processes.

The compensation is likely to be much lower than the high two-digit billion amounts, which wanted to have the corporations. The Federal government must compensate the companies for those electricity quantities, the exit them at the first atom of 2002 had been – and the more you can produce now. However, no compensation for the amounts of power to the corporations which were granted to the corporations in the fall of 2010, the Revision of the nuclear phase-out. You can only claim compensation if you have made in the few months between the Revision and the new law on investments.

The judge had advised five years on the constitutional complaints. Eon, RWE and Vattenfall, it was not a Revision of the nuclear phase-out. You have come to terms with the nuclear phase-out and now all of a radical restructuring of the business with the energy transition aligned.

the managers of The companies saw in the decision a non-permissible intrusion into the property rights of the shareholders. The decision was hasty and inadequate, have been justified. In March, among other things, Eon CEO Johannes Teyssen reaffirmed at a hearing in Karlsruhe, the legal position of his group. “It’s not me to the question of the energy transition”, had Teyssen held, “it’s going to be a fair compensation.”

Would have given the constitutional court the complaints completely, would be able to sue for the companies before the civil courts, a two-digit billion sum. Eon estimated the damage by the government is arranged in the nuclear phase-out, with eight billion euros, a total of 19 billion euros were in the room. The fourth operator of nuclear power plants, EnBW, was not allowed to complain, because it is largely owned by the public Hand – EnBW belongs to the half of the state of Baden-Württemberg. Now, it is likely that, at most, a low billion in assets.