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Nuclear woes - Belgium to import electricity from Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom to avoid forced power cuts

By: Chris Anderson 02/12/2014 Tennet

General Grid

TenneT ready to help Belgium through severe winter periods

European grid administrators have set of measures to help Belgium
The Netherlands has sufficient production capacity for severe winter
Avoidance of temporary power cuts and major outages
Belgium faces a loss of more than 1/3 of its centralized generation capacity compared to the winter 2013-2014.

Belgium currently has a production capacity shortfall of 3,000 megawatts (MW) because of the shutdown of the Doel and Tihange nuclear power stations. This may cause problems in extremely cold periods because demand for electricity will then exceed supply. At the request of Elia (the administrator of the Belgian high-voltage grid), over the past months the transmission system operators (TSOs) of neighbouring countries – including TenneT TSO B.V. – have jointly worked out a set of emergency measures to avoid forced power cuts or possible black-outs in Belgium. Safeguarding grid security is an important principle in this regard. This will prevent a situation where a problem in the Belgian electricity grid impacts on the supply of electricity in the Netherlands and neighbouring countries.These measures consist of the coordination of NTC values on several borders within the CWE Region. Maximum flexibility on NTC capacity is needed in order to facilitate transmission to Belgium to the fullest extent possible and at the same time to assure regional grid security. The extraordinary procedure is expected to enter into force subject to regulatory approval and/or endorsement on December 12, meaning effective from delivery date December 14. A more efficient capacity calculation and allocation method, Flow Based Market Coupling, is foreseen to be implemented in the CWE-region in Spring 20

No problems in the Netherlands
The Netherlands has ample electricity production capacity to meet its own domestic demand in the coming years. There are also interconnectors (cross-border power lines) with neighbouring countries to import electricity from Germany, Norway (NorNed) and the United Kingdom (BritNed). This is what creates the production leeway to supply Belgium. There are three interconnectors between the Netherlands and Belgium. They have maximum capacities, so there is a limit to the amount of electricity transmittable to Belgium over the lines.

Emergency measures
The interconnections to Belgium may be fully utilised in extremely cold periods because a lot of power will then be transmitted from the Netherlands to Belgium and from The Netherlands through Belgium to France. To avoid overloading the lines, the TSOs will need to intervene on days when it is extremely cold and there is little wind. This will be done by restricting the capacity available to the market at other national frontiers so as to ensure that sufficient capacity remains available on the Dutch-Belgian border to supply electricity to Belgium. This emergency measure, which Elia has agreed with the TSOs, is of a temporary nature and differs from the standard process. The measure will be applied only after Belgium has exhausted all possible internal measures, such as activation of its 850 MW of strategic reserve capacity.

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Nuclear woes - Belgium to import electricity from Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom to avoid forced power cuts

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