Regionalisation of long-term energy projections for Belgium (horizon 2030) [ Article 2007100502 - 05/10/2007]

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In 2004, the Federal Planning Bureau has published two reports on long-term energy projections. They describe long-term energy projections for Belgium, but do not provide results on the level of the three Belgian regions (Flemish, Walloon and Brussels Capital). Since some major responsibilities in the field of energy have been regionalised, an insight into regional energy projections seems to be indispensable. The regions not only have to prepare an energy policy plan for the short term, but also have to come up with an energy plan that overlooks a more elaborate time horizon. At the request of theregions, the Federal Planning Bureau therefore embarked on a regionalisation of the energy scenarios described in the two cited reports, the results of which can be found in two working papers: one describing the results for the Flemish Region, the other the Region of Brussels Capital.

All scenarios discussed in the reports of 2004 have been disaggregated to obtain figures per region, namely

the reference scenario
the sensitivity analysis on energy prices
the "renewable energy sources and combined heat and power" scenario
the two "return to nuclear energy" scenarios
the "a new intermodal allocation in transport" scenario
the "mastering the electricity demand" scenario

The regionalisation is performed for the following sectors: energy transformation, industry, tertiary, residential and transport. It concerns primary energy demand, power and steam generation and final energy and non-energy demand. It encompasses the most important categories of energy forms: solid fuels, liquid fuels, gaseous fuels, electricity, steam and renewable energy sources.

The regionalisation starts from the energy projections for Belgium for the horizon 2030 as obtained with the aid of the energy model PRIMES. PRIMES is a modelling system developed at the NTUA in Athens that simulates a market equilibrium solution for energy supply and demand in the EU Member States and, as such, gives results both on the aggregated (EU) and the national (eg. Belgian) level; regional projections, however, are not generated. When one is interested in regional projections based on the national energy projections constructed with PRIMES, an ad hoc regionalisation exercise should be performed. The main reason for the need of a novel approach is that differences exist between the regional energy balances on the one hand and the national energy balance as published by Eurostat and as used by PRIMES to construct its long term energy projections on the other.

Both working papers start off with the description of the methodology developed in order to regionalise long-term energy projections, followed by its results: energy projections up to the horizon of 2030 per scenario for the Flemish and Brussels Capital Region respectively. The methodology breaks down into two parts. First, the existing regional energy data for the base year 2000 is (slightly) adapted in order to conform to the Eurostat format and so that the sum of these regional "adapted" energy statistics equals the official Eurostat energy balance for the year 2000, which was used as input for the national PRIMES energy projections. Second, a number of hypotheses are formulated that, in their turn, allow to determine the evolution of the regional energy balances up to 2030. The latter method is based on the definition of a dual working approach: the method of the energy intensities that is principally used for the regionalisation of the final demand sectors (with the exception of the industrial subsector iron and steel) and an ad hoc approach based on regional data specific to certain sectors that supplements the method of energy intensities (eg. households) or even replaces it in some cases (eg. power and steam generation).

A crucial feature of the regionalisation method is that the sum of the three regional projections should at all times equal the national PRIMES projections as described in the PP95 and WP19-04. Results are presented in the Eurostat balance format for the seven scenarios and the two regions. They are accompanied by a description of the methodology complemented by numerical examples and an elaborate analysis of the results.

The two regions provided assistance during the period of the project through the establishment of regional follow- up committees that discussed hypotheses, gave valuable on-the-floor input and examined results.