Belgium is also facing the energy cost crisis. The price of natural gas reaches 295 euros per MWh and the MWh of electricity can be purchased at 562 euros, as pointed out by RTBF. Record prices that could, if they continue, strongly affect the purchasing power of Belgian households.
Indeed, the newspaper L’Echo has estimated that the average annual domestic bill could reach 8,000 euros. To arrive at this result, the outlet used the prices of the wholesale market for natural gas and electricity on August 24, 2022. Then it multiplied them respectively by the annual gas and electricity consumption bases of a residential customer, established by the Energy Regulator. Electricity and Gas. Commission (Creg) in Belgium. The amount of the estimated annual bill is thus 5,320 euros for natural gas and 2,580 euros for electricity, that is, 7,920 euros in total.
A strong impact that Belgian households can already see in their monthly expenses.
A fall in prices linked to the contraction in demand?
“This month’s prices only account for 1.4% of annual gas consumption,” however, clarifies Jordi Van Paemmel, an energy expert at the Belgian Test-Achats consumer association. Before continuing: “it will be above all the prices communicated at the beginning of October and at the end of March that will determine the total bill for the consumer who heats with gas”.
But there is still one unknown in this equation: how prices will evolve in the coming months. According to the specialist, they could still rise in these terms. Questioned by L’Echo, Damien Ernst believes, for his part, that the contraction in demand could cause, on the contrary, a fall in the price of gas.
At current prices, it estimates the reduction in demand by more than 15% of the usual consumption in Europe. In the first half of 2022, household and business gas consumption in Belgium had already fallen by 18.5%, according to figures from natural gas company Fluxys, taken over by Belgian Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten. , At the end of june.
The price of gas multiplied by 15 since 2020
The price of gas has multiplied by 15 since 2020, recalled the professor at the University of Liège. It was then at 18 euros per MWh, compared to 290 MWh today. As for electricity, it costs ten times more than two years ago. This increase in energy costs is mainly due to supply difficulties resulting from the conflict in Ukraine.
But a series of events subsequently reinforced the energy crisis. For Francesco Contino, professor at the Ecole Polytechnique de UCLouvain and specialist in energy, guest on the channel The first on August 25, they are linked “to climate change and drought”. These weather events caused a reduction in gas production in Norway, one of Belgium’s main suppliers, but also in electricity production in France and Germany.
Source: BFM TV
