German transmission system operators are increasingly buying electricity from neighboring French nuclear power plants to counterbalance the variability of wind and solar generation. This purchase is made under the “cross‑border redispatch” scheme, a mandatory intervention that grid operators use only to guarantee system security. Because the operations are compensation‑owed, the cost is passed on to German consumers in the form of net charges.
According to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), 77 GWh of foreign nuclear power were used for redispatch between January and September 2025-an 11.6 % rise over the previous year’s 69 GWh. The agency confirmed these figures based on data supplied by the network operators.
The data show that the foreign nuclear output is deliberately lowered to avoid overloading German transmission lines when wind or solar output is in excess (negative redispatch). At the same time, German operators sometimes ask foreign nuclear plants to increase production to fill gaps caused by unexpectedly low wind or solar supply (positive redispatch). Fraunhofer ISE studies confirm that both positive and negative redispatches rely on overseas nuclear sources.
Since the shutdown of its last reactors in 2023, Germany has become a net importer of electricity. In the last year it imported more than 60 000 GWh, of which 14 331 GWh came from nuclear energy. France supplied around 9 500 GWh and was by far the largest nuclear source for Germany, followed by Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
The report from “Welt am Sonntag” indicates that the foreign nuclear plants used for redispatch were mainly French. However, it was not possible to attribute the usage to a specific operator among Amprion, Tennet, 50 Hertz and TransnetBW; the agency said the request came from a joint optimisation of all four German transmission operators.