Belgium’s electricity transmission system operator, Elia, focused on the country’s energy concerning 2019, highlighting that the major developments over the past year were a steady increase in, mostly the offshore sector, renewable power generation, better availability of nuclear generating facilities and an increase in electricity exports.
Namely, Belgium showed a progress in renewable power generation mostly driven by the increase of offshore production.
- offshore/onshore wind and solar power increased by 17% in comparison to 2018
- December 2019 was a record month as renewables accounted for 16% of the month’s energy load.
According to Elia, the record achieved in December, 1.17 TWh in absolute terms, was the highest ever recorded in Belgium.
Also, nuclear facilities in the country became more available generating 48% of the power in the country. Also, the report reveals that nuclear plants generated far more power in 2019 than in 2018 (31.2%), a year marked by the significant unavailability of several reactors, especially during the last few months of the year.
Electricity exports surpassed imports, a big change compared to 2018’s stats, when Belgium imported significant quantities of electricity.
Concluding, the country’s gas-fired power stations produced a bit more energy to what they had been producing in the past years, maybe because of the return to the market (since October 2018) of the Seraing (470 MW) and Vilvorde (255 MW) gas turbine power plants. In 2019, these two facilities generated a combined total of 2.58 TWh.
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