By 2030, under all three scenarios, solar PV increases by a factor 4 to more than 20 GW.

Reflecting current public hurdles, wind onshore and offshore investments are bound to a growth constraint from now to 2030, but both need to double in capacity to be on track towards net-zero. 

Under the Central Scenario, the installed electricity system capacity in Belgium needs to increase by more than a factor 5 between 2020 and 2050 - from 23 GW to more than 135 GW (excl. transmission capacity). By 2050, renewable electricity sources (125 GW) represent more than 90% of the total capacity. The technical potential for renewables in Belgium is almost fully utilised: 8 GW of offshore wind, 20 GW of onshore wind and 100 GW of rooftop PV. Investments in 8 GW of e-fuel/hydrogen peak plants– in the shape of STEG plants –  take place to mitigate periods of low wind and sun. 

 Under the Electrification Scenario, the TIMES-Be model invests in a direct connection to 16 GW of offshore wind potential outside of the Belgian North Sea and in 6 GW of Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs), to be operational by 2050. This highly impacts investments in PV capacity and onshore wind. As such, PV capacity increases to 39,5 GW by 2050, which is 57 GW less in comparison to the Central Scenario. Onshore wind capacity reaches 11,6 GW, which is 8,1 GW less compared to the Central Scenario. Belgian offshore wind is slightly impacted: it reaches 7,4 GW due to the higher capacity factor of the far offshore wind farms – 60% of full load hours on a yearly basis. Furthermore, the investments in hydrogen gas turbines are impacted: this technology is no longer selected by the model. Total installed capacity grows to 83,9 GW (excl. transmission capacity), which is the lowest of all three scenarios. 

 Under the Clean Molecules Scenario – with an import of clean molecules at a lower cost and a limitation on carbon storage to 5 Mton/year – total installed capacity reaches 129 GW: 115 GW of renewables, and 12 GW of hydrogen turbines.

Transmission grid capacity for import and export of electricity is an exogenous assumption aligned with the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) for all three scenarios. The transmission capacity increases from a simultaneous capacity of 6,5 GW in 2020 to 13 GW from 2040 onwards. No costs are taken into account for this transmission grid increase.

Generation of electricity typically follows the demand. When the electricity generation capacity in a country mainly exists of controllable thermal plants – the so-called dispatchable load – this can be planned and followed up. The electricity system, however, is changing towards an integration of large volumes of variable – mainly renewable – capacity. Weather forecasts become much more important to plan generation, and a market is created for short term storage such as batteries and flexible demand to follow generation.

To examine these effects, we need to be able to look into the hourly profiles of a typical day in 2050, which is why EnergyVille has developed a method of working with 10 representative days in a year – split into 2-hourly time blocks – to capture enough temporal detail in comparison to more detailed dispatch models, while keeping the solution time limited. 

In the following graphs, we present the electricity generation and demand profile of a typical summer day in 2050.

• Central scenario:
  On a typical summer day in 2050, the large capacity of PV installations generates a large peak of up to 55 GW of electricity over noon. In the evening, solar PV is not generating, and wind onshore and offshore are practically not available (about 2 GW) on this specific summer day. 
  How then can we meet the electricity demand in the evening?
  At the moments in time when solar PV is generating a large peak, we see that batteries are charged with a peak of almost 19 GW of battery capacity. In the evening and during the night, these batteries are discharged, so they can start a new cycle during the next day.
  As such, on an annual basis, batteries are used for 16 TWh of charging in 2050. E-fuel/hydrogen turbines are not used on a sunny summer day: they generate mainly in extended periods of several days with low wind and solar energy.
• Electrification scenario:
  When having access to 16 GW of additional offshore wind and 6 GW of new nuclear SMRs, the generation profile looks completely different. Sourcing wind energy from different regions, combined with the high capacity factor of offshore wind far North Sea, makes it highly likely that offshore wind is available during this typical summer day (13 GW). The more limited PV capacity under this scenario reduces the peak generation during noon to less than 25 GW (compared to the 55 GW under the Central Scenario). Battery storage is needed, but is limited to a peak of 5,6 GW (4,5 TWh annually). Electricity from nuclear is generated mostly during the evening and night. In this study, it is assumed that SMRs can operate in a flexible way. They still operate at full capacity for more than 80% of the year, however, meaning that most flexibility is provided by other sources such as demand response, batteries, interconnections, and so on.
• Clean molecules scenario: A typical summer day generation resembles what we see under the Central Scenario, with exception of the following differences: the higher capacity of hydrogen turbines (12 GW) partially replaces the need for battery storage and import of electricity, and peak battery storage amounts to 13,5 GW (13 TWh annually) under this Clean Molecules Scenario, with import peaks limited to 3 GW.

• Central scenario: On a typical winter day, the very high solar PV peak production seen at noon during summer is not present and amounts to 11,5 GW. Battery capacity needed is limited to 2,9 GW. Wind onshore and offshore produces a total of 5 GW during noon, but generation increases towards the evening. The hydrogen plants operate at full load throughout the day (8 GW) and a limited import of 5 GW is essential during the night. Total peak generation tops at less than 30 GW, which is 25 GW less than on a typical summer day.
• Electrification scenario: Additional offshore wind and SMR complements the limited availability of Belgian PV and wind in the Electrification scenario. Total generation is always above 22 GW.
• Clean molecules scenario: The dispatch generation curve resembles the Central scenario, but the higher capacity of hydrogen turbines replaces import and a small share of biomass.