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

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.

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.

Reactions

“Elia’s study shows that the most profitable and reliable system to meet our electricity needs by 2050 is based on 100 percent renewable energy,” says resigning Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten (Groen) in response to the study. Elia’s various scenarios also show that constructing new nuclear reactors is usually more expensive than investing in offshore wind farms in the North Sea.

“It is essential to extend existing nuclear power plants as much as possible and commit to building new ones to meet future energy demand.” In these terms, the Belgian Nuclear Forum, which represents the atomic sector in Belgium, reacted on Wednesday to Elia’s study analyzing the evolution of electricity demand by 2050.

“It is essential that the maximum extension of the nuclear power stations exists and that there is a commitment to the construction of new nuclear power stations in response to the demand for energy in the future.

“Production from renewable energies alone is insufficient to meet the growing electricity demand, even considering the investments already decided,” the atomic sector says. “The next government must urgently work on a realistic long-term energy policy and include the maximum expansion of existing nuclear reactors as well as the construction of additional nuclear capacity.”

Can we as consumers do something ourselves? “We can try to minimize our consumption ourselves, says energy economist Johan Albrecht, affiliated with Ghent University and the liberal think tank Itinera. “Consumers should make optimal use of the presence of sun and/or wind. Then you have much lower and sometimes negative prices. We also have to prepare and learn to live with electricity shortages. We will sometimes be forced to consume significantly less.”

What the study revealed

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.

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.

Future energy mix

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.