Spain in need of cheap nuclear-generated electricity

Spain cannot “afford the luxury” of rejecting nuclear energy, Spanish Minister of Industry, Energy, and Tourism Jose Manuel Soria said during the conference Reindustrialization of Spain organized by the newspaper El Economista in cooperation with the KPMG audit company. The minister believes that the operating lifetime of nuclear power plants should be extended. Jose Manuel Soria admitted that Spain is facing serious problems regarding its energy independence, and argued that extending the operating life of nuclear power plants would be “a common sense decision”.

Spain has recently become one of the leading countries in terms of renewable power generation, and first of all, generation of solar energy, head of the economy department of the Institute of Energy and Finances Sergei Kondratyev told journalists, BelTA has learned. On the one hand, this can be explained by the climate conditions, and on the other by the ambitious program adopted by the Spanish government that provides for subsidizing not only the construction of on-site solar power stations but also the installation of solar panels, so-called Rooftops. The households using such panels were almost able to stop paying for electricity.

However, such programs were not very market-driven. As the economic situation in Spain deteriorated, those programs were put on halt, as it was increasingly difficult for the government to continue subsidizing them.

Thus, the turn to the traditional power engineering, including nuclear power, seems quite logical. Moreover, lifetime extension of the nuclear power plants can increase their operating period by at least ten years with relatively small financial expenses on ensuing safety and extending their operating life. The electric energy generated by them is very cheap because all the main expenditures paid off during the main operating period. Thus, Spain definitely needs cheap electric power that NPPs can generate. Spain would hardly be able to build new NNPs due to the complicated economic situation. Meanwhile, the lifetime extension of the plants is an economically efficient and market-driven move.