Belgium Loses Five Gas-Fired Power Plants

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Five gas-fired powerplants are to be closed in Belgium and Luxembourg as the country switches to more renewable energy and electricity demand falls.

EDF Luminus, the Belgian arm of French energy major Électricité de France S.A. (EPA:EDF) (Paris, France), is preparing the permanent closure of four of its gas power plants: Seraing, Ghent Ham, Izegem and Angleur TG3. The plants have a combined capacity of 609-megawatts (MW). They comprise the combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants of Seraing (485 MW) near Liege and Ghent Ham (52 MW) along with the open-cycle power plants of Angleur (50 MW) near Liege and Izegem (22 MW) in West Flanders.

In addition to this ENGIE (EPA:ENGI) (Paris, France) has announced that it is to close its Twinerg combined cycle power plant, located in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, by October. The plant, which has a generating capacity of 380 MW and is connected to the Belgian grid, has played a key role in supplying Belgium's winter reserve power but ENGIE and other minority partners have claimed that the plant is no longer economical to run.

"Due to the declining demand for electricity, the increase in renewable energy and the fall in CO2 prices, European coal-fired power stations are increasingly called upon," EDF stated. "As a result, certain gas power stations of EDF Luminus did not run enough over the past years. With this perspective, and in accordance with the Belgian legislation requiring that the authorities be informed of a possible permanent shutdown before 31 July, the Board of Directors of EDF Luminus approved the proposal of the management to inform the government about the permanent closure of the power stations."

It added: "The actual closure is planned for 31 October 2017, but in the meantime EDF Luminus will monitor the ongoing talks about capacity remuneration mechanisms for the thermal power stations. The four power stations involved collectively represent an installed capacity of 609 MW and employ about 40 people."

ENGIE stated: After searching in vain for a buyer for Twinerg, plant shareholders took the view that the production unit no longer offers the earnings outlook to continue operating despite the attractive location of plant at the intersection of the grid networks for Luxembourg, France, Belgium and Germany. The current economic and regulatory situation in the European electricity market is not enough to keep the plant operating. It will close in October 2016. The unit will then be dismantled and the site restored to its original state in accordance with the requirements of the authorities as part of the land use plan."

In recent years, Belgium has relied on increased gas-fired power as a number of its seven reactors were offline due to technical issues. Last November, Electrabel SA (Brussels, Belgium), which is part of ENGIE, received the green light to restart the Doel 3 and Tihange 2 nuclear power plant units, which were offline since 2014, owing to a number of ongoing technical poblems. For additional information, see November 24, 2015, article--Belgium Clears Two Reactors for Restart.

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