CONSULTING

The Netherlands operates a single, 43-year-old 480 MW PWR that provided 3.9 TWh or
3.7 percent of the country’s power in 2015, down from a maximum of 6.2 percent in 1986. 782 In
June 2006, the operator and the Government reached an agreement to allow operation of the
reactor until 2033. 783 Greenpeace Netherlands has voiced concerns about the safety of Borssele,
in particular since a near-by coal power station was shut down in late 2015 and power supply
would lack redundancy. “If the power on the grid is unavailable for some reason, all power must
come from there [the emergency diesel generators]”, Joerien de Lege of Greenpeace stated. 784
In January 2012, the utility DELTA announced it was putting off the decision on nuclear new-build
“for a few years” and that there would be “no second nuclear plant at Borssele for the time
being”. 785 No utility is currently showing any interest in pursuing new build. On the contrary, the
nuclear utilities are struggling with shrinking income and increasing costs. German utility RWE
that holds 30 percent of Borssele operator EPZ, reports for 2015 a 29 percent drop in equity value
of its EPZ holding and practically a wipe-out of its income (–95 percent) compared to 2013. 786
Dutch utility Delta that holds the majority 70 percent of EPZ is loosing money and is undergoing
fundamental restructuring. 787
In June 2014, EPZ started the use of plutonium Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel at Borssele. EPZ is
currently the only remaining foreign customer for commercial spent fuel of AREVA’s La Hague
reprocessing plant. The plan is to consume all of the plutonium that is separated in as much as
40 percent MOX in the core. 788
The Netherlands illustrates the significance of the European power market for the operational
mode of national electricity generating capacities. The dramatic drop in wholesale power prices
in Germany due to the rise in renewables, combined with low coal and relatively high natural gas
prices, has led German utilities to shut down their gas-fired power plants in the Netherlands and
import power from Germany. The Netherlands imported 16 TWh net from Germany in 2015. 789
Spain operates seven reactors. Nuclear plants provided 54.8 TWh or 20.3 percent of the
country’s electricity in 2015 (with a maximum of 38.4 percent in 1989). Beyond the de-facto
moratorium that has been in place for decades, the previous Premier Jose Luis Zapatero
782 BP, “Statistical Review of World Energy”, June 2014.
783 WNA, “Nuclear Power in the Netherlands”, Updated 27 November 2014, see www.worldnuclear.org/info/inf107.html,
accessed 2 June 2013.
784 NLTimes, “Greepeace concerned about Borssele nuclear plant”, 18 May 2016, see
http://www.nltimes.nl/2016/05/18/greenpeace-concerned-about-borssele-nuclear-plant-safety/, accessed
2 July 2016.
785 DELTA, “DELTA puts off decision for a few years, no second nuclear plant at Borssele for the time
being”, Press Release, 23 January 2012.
786 RWE, “Annual Report 2015”, March 2016.
787 Delta, “Annual Report 2015”, 2016.
788 NEI, “Borssele moves to MOX”, 11 March 2015, see www.neimagazine.com/features/featureborsselemoves-to-mox-4530062/,
accessed 18 June 2016.
789 Agora Energiewende, “Die Energiewende im Stromsektor: Stand der Dinge 2015”, 7 January 2016, (in
German) see https://www.agoraenergiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2016/Jahresauswertung_2016/Agora_Jahresauswertung_2015_web.pdf
, accessed 2 July 2016.
Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al. 189 World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016