Germany switched off its last reactor in April 2023. Since then, it has been buying nuclear electricity from France. In 2024, Berlin imported roughly 15 TWh of French electricity — almost entirely of nuclear origin — hitting record levels according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. France, in the same year, increased its electricity exports by 48%, reaching a total of 103 TWh across Europe. The biggest recipient? Germany, which now relies on Paris’s nuclear output to keep its own lights on.
The paradox is well known, but 2025 figures make it even harder to dismiss. In the first quarter of the year, fossil fuels accounted for 50.5% of electricity fed into the German grid — the highest share in two years. Renewables fell to 49.5%, down 17% compared to the same period in 2024. Wind power let the country down badly, with output collapsing by 29%. When the wind drops, Germany fires up its coal plants or calls Paris. Bloomberg had already documented the pattern back in November 2024: weak winds in Germany, a nuclear electricity order placed with France, where reactors were running at their highest output since the start of the year.
Behind the data lies a political decision made two decades ago, accelerated after Fukushima in 2011. Germany once operated 17 reactors. It shut them down one by one. The final three remained online until April 2023 only because the Russian gas crisis made any earlier closure politically untenable. With domestic nuclear capacity gone, Germany’s energy mix now rests on three pillars: intermittent renewables, fossil fuel backup, and imports. Natural gas still accounts for roughly one third of the country’s final energy consumption, according to the International Energy Agency. The LNG terminals hastily built on the North Sea fill only part of the gap left by Russian pipelines.
France took the opposite path. The Messmer Plan of the 1970s built a nuclear fleet that today comprises 57 reactors — the largest in Europe. In 2024, nuclear power generated 65% of French electricity, totalling 361 TWh, up from 320 TWh in 2023. EDF is making billions selling electricity abroad, while Germany pays market prices for the very nuclear power it refuses to generate on its own soil but consumes without hesitation. A member of Germany’s FDP put it bluntly: the Greens’ energy transition is propped up by French nuclear electricity — which, however, costs more than the power that Germany’s now-closed reactors used to produce domestically.
A comparative study cited by Climate Scorecard modelled two scenarios for the German energy system: one including nuclear, one without. The findings are unambiguous. The scenario that retains nuclear power delivers a more stable, more affordable system with greater energy security. The renewables-only scenario generates higher costs and greater difficulties in grid integration. In other words, Germany is now empirically verifying this conclusion at its own expense. For the time being, the bill is being paid by German consumers — among the most heavily burdened in Europe when it comes to electricity prices — while Paris reaps the rewards of an industrial strategy adopted fifty years ago and never abandoned. Should the debate over a return to nuclear power make it back onto Germany’s political agenda, these numbers will be very difficult to ignore.
