Three of Belgium’s seven nuclear reactors are currently down, and the international press is waiving the power outage flag for the upcoming winter. But the concern is, as so often, a bit exaggerated; Germany has plenty of reserves for its neighbors and will be happy to step in to fill the gaps, as it did in 2012 – even though no power is traded between Belgium and Germany.
We could start with the Wall Street Journal’s article entitled “Belgium’s nuclear fiasco spreads panic (sort of) or with this article in German, where I first read about the matter, but either way Belgium faces a power shortage, with roughly 3 of its 5.7 megawatts of nuclear power capacity currently off-line.
On the other hand, who cares? The situation has hardly changed over the past few years; since Fukushima, two of the nuclear plants have been switched off much of the time. During that time, no particular power outage occurred, and the country has added roughly 0.5 GW of offshore wind alone in recent years – with an average capacity factor of around 44 percent, making it equivalent to around 0.25 GW of nuclear.
But the main question is whether grid interconnections will allow the Belgians to import whatever power they need to fill any gaps that occurs. At present, there is no high-voltage connection between Belgium and Germany, so no power is traded directly. The Belgians import most of their power from the Netherlands and France – and that’s the bad news.
You see, the Netherlands were the biggest importer of power from Germany in 2013 and continue to vie for top position this year. In contrast, France – the second biggest importer of power from Germany in 2013 – saw its imports drop this year, primarily because of the mild winter. But if the winter of 2014/15 is harsh again, France will once again predictably need electricity from Germany. And France also has had a handful of nuclear plants trip up this year, which it needs to get back online for the winter.
In that case, the question will be whether there is enough capacity left over in the power lines between Germany and NL & FR to serve Belgium as well during a windless spell.
source: http://www.renewablesinternational.net/lights-out-in-belgium/150/537/81156/
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