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Belgium faces risk of winter power cuts
Electricity grid manager Elia said it is concerned that Belgium will face a significant risk of blackouts this winter, and more particularly in the winter of 2015-2016. Strategic power reserves to correct the situation are deemed insufficient to meet demand.
Elia said it will henceforth pay greater attention to demand management, offering remuneration to customers, businesses or private individuals, who consent to halt their consumption temporarily during peak demand periods. This approach would help to prevent rotating power cuts, whereby by turns whole areas of the country are plunged into darkness.
The current closure of several nuclear power plants, including the nuclear reactors of Doel 3 and Tihange 2, has put the grid under pressure to meet demand. The strategic reserve set up by the government, for which bids must be submitted by 18.00 Friday, 4 July, is not considered enough to cover the drop in production.
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Excellent news !! The potential for energy saving is still gigantic. Instead of installing new power generating capacity, let's put money into subsidising the purchase of ultra-efficient appliances. At some stage motorists were given money to buy less polluting cars. There is no reason why other citizens should not be given money to help them opt for better household equipment that will yield energy savings for 10-15 years and save us from (a) Indian or American style blackouts (b) more money being thrown into the pockets of undemocratic governments, from Russia to Saudi Arabia (or the US, for that matter - the University of Princeton has just released a study concluding that the US is a plutocracy more than a proper democracy...) and (c) more pressure on the already changing climate...
The technology inventors Stan Meyers and Nikolas Tesla created would help the fuel and environment problems.