Businesses blocked, saturated industrial zones. Walloon Energy Minister Cécile Neven presents her solutions: a framework designed to make grid connections more flexible and faster, ahead of a broader reform.
Too many projects hit a wall: access to power capacity. In several industrial zones, it is almost impossible to set up or expand due to a lack of available capacity.
“The rapid electrification of uses, combined with the rise of data centres, energy storage and electric mobility, has not been sufficiently anticipated,” warns Cécile Neven, Walloon Minister for Energy. “Without strengthening the grid, there will be neither an energy transition nor economic redeployment. We must act quickly and methodically.”
To address this urgent situation, the Minister from Namur presented her solutions this week.
A new decree will introduce flexible contracts across the territory. The aim? To free up capacity and speed up connections to the electricity grid, including in saturated zones.
Two Task Forces, bringing together all stakeholders, support the action and prepare a structural reform. They monitor blocked projects, seek temporary local solutions and are meant to enable, among other things, the adaptation of the regulatory framework.
In parallel, a reform of the power access framework is under way to guarantee lasting access to capacity. This will involve ending the “first come, first served” principle. Several options are being explored, such as prioritising and segmenting uses, cracking down on phantom projects, and recovering unused capacity.
“It's time to change our approach,” concludes the Minister. “Project developers need a clear and predictable framework for grid connections.” A concrete and ambitious action, true to the spirit of the Mouvement Réformateur: a transition that is “ambitious and viable”, without dogmatism, based on grid reliability and security of supply. Something reinforced by the mirror governments, with the Energy portfolio in liberal hands, both in Wallonia and at federal level.