German nuclear availability continues to be affected by outages, with only six reactors online. Although the 1300MWe Gundremmingen C unit was reconnected with the grid on 13 January, the 1400MWe Isar 2 reactor was closed later the same day for refuelling and maintenance.

Gundremmingen C was taken offline earlier than planned on 11 December for additional maintenance and repairs in addition to a planned refuelling stop and tripped during a first restart attempt on 6 January, requiring some additional repairs. Gundremmingen NPP is operated by Kernkraftwerk Gundremmingen, a joint operation of RWE Power (75%) and E.ON Kernkraft.

Isar 2’s outage is scheduled to last two weeks, operator PreussenElektra (part of  E.ON), said in a statement. Isar 2 and the two reactors at Gundremmingen provided around 37% of Bavaria's power demand last year, but are set to close by 2022 as part of Germany’s nuclear phase out policy. German nuclear output in 2016 fell to its lowest since the 1980s, with 85TWh generated by its remaining eight reactors.