Germany may become an exporter of technologies to decommission reactors in the future given the experience gained after its phasing out of nuclear energy, German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said in a recent interview with Kyodo News.

Germany believes it may be able to halt all nuclear power in the country before its 2022 target year, Hendricks said Wednesday in Berlin. She also expressed hope for cooperation with other countries in reactor decommissioning.

“I cannot exclude the possibility that the last nuclear reactor will be switched off earlier than 2022; there has been a reactor which switched off earlier than it was planned, because of the costs of running it longer,” she said.

The interview was held prior to her visit to Japan to take part in the Group of Seven environment ministers’ meeting scheduled for May 15 and 16 in Toyama on the Sea of Japan coast.

After the session, she plans to travel on to Fukushima Prefecture, home to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which suffered a triple-meltdown triggered by a major quake and tsunami in 2011.

“I want see the situation with my eyes and see how Japan has dealt with it,” she said.

The Fukushima disaster motivated Germany to decide the same year to abandon atomic energy by 2022.

“In Germany we have begun or finished the decommissioning of nearly 20 nuclear power units and more than 30 research reactors,” she said. “We have gathered a lot of technological experiences.

“The nuclear power phase-out is an advantage, because we have begun earlier to gather experiences on how to change a nuclear power plant to a green grass or a base for another industry,” she said.

The minister added that nuclear decommissioning “will become the next export technology” for Germany.

Asked to comment on Japan’s resumption of some reactors taken offline after the nuclear accident, she said: “Every country has to decide about their energy mix. I do not want to make advice.”

Hendricks, however, expressed “surprise” that Japan has not fully made use of renewable energy sources like solar, wind and hydropower.

The environment ministers’ meeting is one of the G-7 ministerial sessions being held in Japan in the run-up to the Ise-Shima summit May 26 and 27. The G-7 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.