The government remains committed to meeting the closure timetable agreed with the major electricity companies, outlining a phased shutdown of all plants that leads to a total blackout by 2035. Almaraz, located in Cáceres, will be the first to close, with Reactor 1 scheduled for 2027 and Reactor 2 for 2028. The process of shutting down and dismantling the Almaraz plant has already begun, but the administration keeps the first major contract in a latent state and will maintain that stance through 2025.
The government dismissed calls from the region and parts of the energy sector to extend the plant’s life. In June, the first formal step toward closing the facility was taken. Enresa, the state company responsible for managing radioactive waste and dismantling nuclear plants, announced a tender worth 28 million euros to hire engineering services for the Almaraz decommissioning. The plant is owned by Iberdrola (53%), Endesa (36%), and Naturgy (11%).
Enresa has kept the tender in a pre-announcement phase, a procedural step that lets potential bidders prepare in advance and speed up the process once the competition begins. Enresa plans to extend this pre-announcement phase for a few more months and will not launch the formal tender until the early months of 2025, according to Enresa sources cited by El Periódico de España.
Enresa, controlled 80% by CIEMAT and 20% by the SEPI holding, is seeking specialized firms to carry out the studies and the design engineering for decommissioning projects, the work to design the dismantling and the preparation of documentation to obtain authorization for Almaraz’s dismantling, as reflected in the official tender documents.
Countdown Time
Almaraz is already in countdown mode, with the government openly defending the plan to meet the phased closure schedule. The official calendar states that Reactor I will stop in November 2027 and Reactor II in October 2028. Almaraz has produced 611,000 gigawatt-hours over four decades of operation, making it the largest electricity producer in Spain’s history, and last year it accounted for about 7% of the country’s electricity consumption, despite the surge in renewables.
The Foro Nuclear association, which brings together Endesa, Iberdrola, Naturgy and EDP, has argued for extending Almaraz’s life and delaying the closure dates, stressing that the plant is ready to operate for years. But the window for revising these dates is not unlimited, given the many operational and economic constraints involved.
The planning process for the investments needed to keep the plant running, the training and hiring of personnel, and the procurement of nuclear fuel and other supplies requires a decision roughly three years before the scheduled shutdown. In other words, any revision to Almaraz’s shutdown dates should occur no later than the end of this year or very early next year.
If the decision comes after the early months of 2025, the plant would have to remain idle for a period before restarting, a scenario the owners are keen to avoid. Iberdrola, Endesa and Naturgy fear a prolonged standstill that would suspend electricity generation and revenue while awaiting authorization to resume operations. Meanwhile, maintenance and staffing costs would pile up as the plant sits in limbo, echoing what happened at the nearby Santa María de Garoña plant in Burgos due to ownership disputes between Iberdrola and Endesa.
The owners acknowledge they have parallel plans for both scenarios: closing on schedule and extending the plant’s life. Enresa also confirms that preparatory work for dismantling is being carried out in partnership with the plant’s management. Generally, the large utilities have shown a preference for keeping the plant running beyond the planned closure, but they concede that a delay is unlikely given the government’s current stance and the shrinking time window.
The General Plan for Radioactive Waste (PGRR) requires Enresa to begin the preparatory tasks for dismantling between three and preferably five years before the definitive stop date. True to these timelines, the public company has begun activities to gather the information needed for project design and is now ready to activate the first major contracting for engineering services to initiate dismantling, in cooperation with the plant’s owners.
“Final Renewal” and “Definitive Cessation”
In March 2019, the Government and Enresa reached an agreement with Endesa, Iberdrola, Naturgy and EDP on a staged shutdown between 2027 and 2035 for all reactors. Endesa secured an extension beyond the then-40-year benchmark, and Iberdrola obtained a regulatory framework and, later, guarantees—agreed separately with Endesa—about the maximum investments to be injected into several plants, including Almaraz.
For years the two large utilities clashed over the closure of Spain’s nuclear plants. After tough battles over whether to reactivate Garoña or renew licenses for other plants, a sector-wide accord was reached five years ago. A fragile peace came at a critical moment, just as the window to file renewal requests for Almaraz and Vandellós was about to close.
The agreement stipulated that the 2019 license renewal would include the word “closure” alongside explicit dates: 2027 for unit I and 2028 for unit II. In the update to the operating authorization and the ministerial order that eventually advanced the government’s process, it is explicit that this constitutes the “latest and definitive renewal of the operating authorization” for the Cáceres plant and confirms the “definitive cessation” of both reactors upon license expiry, with the aim of dispelling doubts about any potential prolongation.