Do you have a source that shows that shutting down nuclear power plants has in any way influenced German power import? I'd doubt that. Power is imported when it is cheaper to import it than produce it ourselves (there has not been a situation yet where Germany couldn't meet it's own demand).
Our inverter is built for high-voltage batteries (120V to 580V) so I'm aiming for either using expired EV batteries or - once prices go down more - LiFePO4 battery stacks. As it stands prices are still too high which - calculated over the life span of the batteries combined with compound interest on the investment - makes power from such batteries cost around the same as power taken from the 'net. Battery prices are steadily going down so this situation should change, hopefully within 3 years they'll have gone down so far as to make it a worthwhile investment.
Power is imported when it is cheaper to import it than produce it ourselves
After shutting down the remaining 6, then 3 nuclear power plants it became cheaper to import power from Sweden - which used to be blessed with relatively low electricity prices due to to the large hydro and (diminishing) nuclear generation capacity - than to generate it in Germany. While this might have been positive for Germany and for electricity producers in Sweden it is a definite negative for electricity users in Sweden who have seen their prices skyrocket. As to the direct effects of the nuclear shutdown there's quite a bit written, e.g.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/qa-germanys-nucle...
4) What changed in electricity imports and why?
For the first time in many years, Germany became a net electricity importer in 2023. The trade balance for electricity switched from 21 TWh of exports to 22 TWh of imports in the same period. Imports have risen despite sufficient plant capacity in Germany to cover domestic demand entirely. In March 2024, the country announced the shutdown of seven more coal-fired power plant units after the winter, as they are no longer needed to guarantee supply security.
This leaves aside other costs involved with the nuclear phase-out [1] and the knock-on effects of the increased energy prices as well as lower guaranteed availability which is part of the cause of German deindustrialisation. If you doubt whether this actually happening I invite you to peruse a search engine of your preference on the subject which is more effective than me linking to a number of articles from many different sources.
[1] https://olivierdeschenes.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/5/0/13506865...
> Imports have risen despite sufficient plant capacity in Germany to cover domestic demand entirely. In March 2024, the country announced the shutdown of seven more coal-fired power plant units after the winter, as they are no longer needed to guarantee supply security.
Because it answers his question and it is relevant in the context of Germany shutting down its nuclear power plants since this created a gap which needed to be filled with imports. Had those plants not been shut down there would not be a need to import power at the scale Germany currently does, especially not given the fact that power from existing nuclear power plants running on an existing load of nuclear fuel is far cheaper than imported power. With nuclear power the large majority of costs are concentrated in the construction phase - including all the costs incurred due to regulations - as well as the decommissioning stage. Fuel costs - including those of treating and storing nuclear waste - are but a fraction of the total costs. This means that once you have a working nuclear power plant you want to run the thing at full capacity as long as possible to recoup those initial costs and to earn income to finance the decommissioning of the plant at the end of its life. The plants which were shut down were not at the end of their useful lifetimes and could have produced many TWh of energy still - e.g. Isar 2 produced around 11 billion kWh per year and supplied around 3.5 million households with electricity which it could have continued to do for many years still.