Interim Director, Nuclear Power Plants Division
Jens Karl Bender graduated in physics from Philipps University Marburg in 1997 before completing his doctorate at the Institute of Thermodynamics at the Technical University of Braunschweig in 2003.
Before joining ENSI, Jens Karl Bender worked for the plant manufacturer KWU (later Framatome ANP) in Offenbach, the operating companies HEW (later Vattenfall) and E.ON-Kernkraft (later Preussen Elektra), and BGZ Gesellschaft für Zwischenlagerung.
He worked in the Nuclear Safety staff unit at Krümmel Nuclear Power Plant and headed the Mechanical Engineering unit at both the Unterweser and Brokdorf plants. His responsibilities at the latter also included serving as on-call plant manager, a position broadly equivalent to the Swiss role of on-call engineer.
As part of Preussen Elektra’s decommissioning planning programme, Jens Karl Bender led the initial overall planning for the technical and financial preparations required for the permanent shutdown of Brokdorf Nuclear Power Plant.
Jens Karl Bender later served on BGZ’s planning team in Berlin and Essen as the designated site manager for a national logistics centre intended to coordinate deliveries of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste to the Konrad repository. He remained in this role until the project was abandoned.
Jens Karl Bender is qualified as a shift supervisor for pressurised water reactors (PWRs) in accordance with the technical competence guideline issued under the German Atomic Energy Act.
Jens Karl Bender has headed ENSI’s Systems Engineering Section since 2023 and also oversees a portfolio of projects to modernise the emergency systems at Gösgen Nuclear Power Plant. His leadership responsibilities expanded further in April 2025, when he became acting deputy head of the Nuclear Power Plants Division.