Belgium played a key role in supplying energy to its main neighbours in 2022, as it was France’s largest electricity supplier and Germany’s main transit country for natural gas.
“Belgium helped France and Germany overcame their energy difficulties in 2022. We can show solidarity with our neighbours thanks to our unique location and strong interconnections,” Belgian Energy Minister Tinne Van Straeten tweeted on Wednesday.
Once Europe’s electricity export champion, France ran out of energy last year due to maintenance work on many of its nuclear reactors and a drop in output from its hydroelectric plants due to drought. As a consequence, the country had to import large amounts of electricity from Spain, the UK, Germany and Belgium amid the 2022 energy crisis.
Most notably, Belgium was France’s largest electricity supplier that year, with almost 10 terawatt hours of net exports, the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 2.8 million households. This is a reversal of the situation in the years when Belgium had to rely on massive imports from France.
Last year, power supplied to France originated from various Belgian energy production sites and from surplus electricity from the Netherlands or Germany transiting through Belgium. The connections between Belgian transmission system operator for high-voltage electricity Elia and its French counterpart RTE were extended just before the winter to 6 gigawatts, the equivalent of six nuclear reactors.
‘Whether Belgium sends massive electrons to Paris again this year will depend on production at home and the situation in France,’ Marie-Laure Vanwanseele, Elia spokeswoman, told De Tijd.
With the permanent shutdown of the country’s largest nuclear reactors – Doel 3 at the end of last year and Tihange 2 this week – production in Belgium is falling sharply. Exports are thus expected to be lower than in previous years.
For natural gas, Belgium was the third supplier to Germany in 2022, according to a German government ranking – coming only after Norway and Russia, both gas producers.
Gas transit to neighbouring countries rose sharply last year to 441 terawatt hours, reports the system operator Fluxys. That is equivalent to three times the domestic consumption of Belgian households, industry and gas-fired power plants. “We played our role as a transit country,” said Thierry Vervenne, Fluxys spokesman.
(Arthur Riffaud | EURACTIV.com)
Source: euractiv.com
