- BERLIN: German utilities say more than three-quarters of the country’s nuclear power plants are offline due to maintenance and shutdowns ordered by the government in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster.
Utilities say scheduled maintenance work at three reactors leaves only four of the country’s 17 nuclear power plants online as of Saturday.
Nuclear power usually generates about 23 percent of Germany’s electricity — about the same level as in the US
But its share is dwindling in Germany since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan’s Fukushima plant because Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government decided to shut down seven reactors pending thorough safety checks.
Others plants in the past weeks were taken off the grid for scheduled maintenance work.
