Three years after Germany mothballed nuclear power, investors are showing renewed interest in developing nuclear technologies, a study has found.

The country’s last three nuclear power plants, Isar-2, Neckarwestheim-2 and Emsland, were permanently shut down in April 2023, making good on the country’s phaseout even amid Europe’s energy crisis caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Until March 2011, when Germany’s older reactors were shut down immediately after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany generated one-quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy with 17 reactors.

However, three years on from the final shutdown, there are initial indications that investor appetite is returning for new nuclear technologies in some parts of German industry, according to a study by UK-based law firm Pinsent Masons and research company Censuswide, also UK-based.