Belgian energy sector
General change of Belgian policy, consisting in wider rights shift from State to Regions, has caused the change of country policy in energy sector as well. ValBiom c/o CRA-W - Agricultural Research Centre, Agricultural Engineering Department had investigated the situation with Belgian energy sector and made, the information collected, open to public, excluding the links to literary, website references and some industry experts interviews. All report inaccuracies concerning some figures - biomass resources and prices calculations should be interpreted no more than relative ones
Table 2. Belgium in brief, 2003 (ICEDD, 2005)
Gross country energy consumption 55.8 Mtoe 2 336 PJ
* including biomass 1.0 Mtoe 42.8 PJ
Biomass consumption to power production 0.63 Mtoe 26.4 PJ
Biomass amount in final energy consumption 0.45 Mtoe 18.8 PJ
Belgian residential sector (32%), the industry (31%) and the transport (23%) are main energy customers in the country. While biomass makes only few percents of total energy usage percentage (1.8% for the year 2003), by thus preventing to collect accurate data on biomass different types, which are employed for energy production in Belgium.
The first place for energy production belongs to nuclear power plants making approximately 56% of the electricity, which makes more or less stable share. From the moment the oil disappeared since the mid -80th, the natural gas share had been increased. Thanks to strong support from environmental protection organizations the renewable energy share has rapidly grown since 2002. Since 2005, the coal amount ration is decreasing relatively to biomass share growth
Fuel prices
As biomass wholesale price is being kept confidential, there are few data of biomass consumption at Belgian energy sector. The chart presents the prices for fuel, employed in heat production in December, 2004 and June, 2005. The aforementioned prices are subdivided by the following end user categories, excluding value added tax (VAT): wholesale prices and separate pricing for municipal and industrial plants.
The energy sector taxation is being greatly influenced by fuel prices coefficients, thus largely increasing wood fuels competitive power in heat generation sector.
