EU Energy/Climate package and energy supply security in Belgium [ Working Paper 16-09 - 21/12/2009]

In December 2008, the European Union adopted an integrated Energy/Climate package which steps up the Union’s energy and climate policy ambitions to a new level and outlines how the effort will be shared among the Member States. This paper underlines the benefits of the EU Energy/Climate package in terms of energy supply security for Belgium, and more specifically the positive impacts the twin target – greenhouse gas emissions reduction and development of renewable energy sources – has on our dependence on fossil fuels. More specifically, the paper shows that substitutions in favour of renewables and a decrease in energy demand including the demand for electricity, which are the key responses of the Belgian energy system to the Energy/Climate package, not only allow to keep a balanced fuel mix in power  generation in 2020 but also lead to reduced overall fossil fuel imports relative to baseline projections. They also water down the trend towards an increased dependency on natural gas imports. Net imports of fossil fuels decrease by 9% in 2020 compared to baseline trends. Compared to the year 2005, they increase only slightly by 3%. The growth of natural gas imports is limited to 11% over the same period, against +21% in the baseline.