Belgian capacity mechanism

ClientEarth contends that Belgium's proposed capacity remuneration mechanism (CRM) is legally non-compliant and unnecessary. The organization argues that the national resource adequacy assessment (NRAA) fails to follow ACER's methodology, ignores the absence of price caps, and overstates adequacy concerns. Furthermore, ClientEarth asserts that the CRM's support for new gas capacity contradicts the European Green Deal and Belgium's own climate neutrality goals for 2050, and that the scheme lacks a required phase-out provision.

• The Belgian national resource adequacy assessment (NRAA) is non-compliant with the EU Electricity Market Regulation (EMR) because it does not follow ACER's methodology and was conducted before the European resource adequacy assessment (ERAA) was adopted.
• Adjusting the NRAA to use a 30-year historical climate database and expected market revenues instead of median revenues would likely show that no adequacy concern exists for 2025 and 2028, with the average Loss of Load Expectation (LoLE) potentially falling below 3 hours.
• The CRM is disproportionate because the expected energy not served (EENS) is projected to decrease sharply from 19.7GWh in 2025 to 3.6GWh in 2030, suggesting any adequacy concern is temporary.
• The CRM's design allows for the support of new fossil gas capacity, which ClientEarth argues is incompatible with the European Green Deal, the State of the Energy Union report, and Belgium's goal of climate neutrality by 2050.
• The Belgian government's proposal to potentially prolong up to 2GW of nuclear power if the first CRM auctions fail creates legal uncertainty and may lead to discriminatory compensations for capacity providers that constitute illegal State aid.
• The CRM violates Article 21(7) of the EMR because it contains no provision for an efficient administrative phase-out of the mechanism.
• The Belgian state breached Article 25(4) of the EMR by unilaterally changing the parameters for the amount of capacity to be procured, rather than acting on a proposal from the regulatory authority (CREG).

APA

Walravens, M. K., & Delarue, J. (2020). Belgian capacity mechanism. ClientEarth. https://www.clientearth.org/media/fhbhskjz/belgian-capacity-mechanism-clientearth-observations-on-sa-54915_16-nov-2020.pdf

Chicago

Walravens, Maria Kleis, and Juliette Delarue. Belgian capacity mechanism. ClientEarth, 2020. https://www.clientearth.org/media/fhbhskjz/belgian-capacity-mechanism-clientearth-observations-on-sa-54915_16-nov-2020.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Walravens |first1=Maria Kleis |last2=Delarue |first2=Juliette |title=Belgian capacity mechanism |publisher=ClientEarth |date=16 November 2020 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/fhbhskjz/belgian-capacity-mechanism-clientearth-observations-on-sa-54915_16-nov-2020.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{walravens2020belgian, author = {Walravens, Maria Kleis and Delarue, Juliette}, title = {{Belgian capacity mechanism}}, publisher = {ClientEarth}, year = {2020}, month = nov, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/fhbhskjz/belgian-capacity-mechanism-clientearth-observations-on-sa-54915_16-nov-2020.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }