http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5E7JV0Z2201108...

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5E7JV0Z220110831

German regulator discards nuclear as reserve power

BERLIN, Aug 31 - Germany's energy regulator on Wednesday dismissed the option of keeping spare nuclear capacity open on standby, should power systems be overstretched in the coming winter months.

"We've been spared the necessity to reactivate a nuclear power station," the president of the federal network agency, Matthias Kurth, told reporters in Berlin.

The announcement ended speculation about whether parts of Germany's nuclear capacity, about 8,800 MW of which was shut in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster, could be reopened after all, if power was to
Kurth said that he had won assurances that hard-coal fired plants in Mannheim or alternatively in Mainz-Wiesbaden could ready additional capacity in such instances.

A move by Kurth had become necessary because power transmission grid operators needed to know how to balance the networks in the cold months.

So far, the sudden closure of 41 percent of Germany's nuclear capacity has been absorbed but this could change under unfavourable weather conditions in the converging central European power markets.

Kurth was under a Sept. 1 deadline to come up with a solution, as the prevention of power black-outs falls under his authority's brief.

Baden Wuerttemberg state said last Friday it had offered to re-permission an old coal-fired power unit, block 3 of 220 megawatts at Mannheim plant GKM, to function as reserve within two months.

Any reserve plants will operate only up to March 2013, by which time it is expected that enough renewable power capacity will have been added to make additional reserves unnecessary.

Kurth had been threatening to enforce the resumption of nuclear capacity in Baden Wuerttemberg, Bavaria or Hesse state, if no other alternatives were made ready.