The reactor, in the southwestern town of Obrigheim, is due to be dismantled in 2023.

It is the second closure in a programme of shutdowns after the Stade plant in northern Germany was put out of service in November 2003.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats and their environmentalist Green partners in the ruling coalition struck an agreement with the country's main energy providers in 2001 to phase out nuclear power.

The agreement foresees in theory that the 17 remaining nuclear plants, excluding Obrigheim and Stade, will be shut by 2020.

But a clause allowing their operators to keep some plants in service for longer providing they shut others means some reactors will still be in service beyond that date.

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