Elia: ‘new wind farms and nuclear to cover growing electricity demand’

According to electricity provider Elia, electricity demand will only increase over the next 25 years. Cars will run on batteries, industrial processes will run on electricity, and we’ll heat our homes with heat pumps.

Elia, therefore, wants the new government to make decisions about new investments in power supply and the future energy mix because new major energy projects quickly require 10 to 15 years of preparation.

Energy consumption will double

The high-voltage grid operator has mapped out how electricity demand will evolve in the long term and what options our country has to realize this as cheaply and as low-carbon as possible.

Elia expects our energy consumption to double by 2050, and the energy supplies planned today will not be sufficient. In other words, if nothing happens, we will have to import half of our electricity within 25 years. Measures are, therefore, needed to reduce this dependence on imports.

Future energy mix

Additional in-house renewable production—more wind turbines and solar panels—is a logical step in the right direction, but it is insufficient overall. Other options include building new nuclear power stations, investing in foreign wind farms in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, or Ireland, and importing electricity.

The high-voltage manager mainly wants the new government to decide on the future energy mix. After all, it takes many years to adapt our electricity grid to those choices.

Elia has also considered other future energy carriers, such as green hydrogen and derivatives such as ammonia. However, the company expects these will only play a limited role compared to electricity in most scenarios.