Flanders and Wallonia join forces for renewable energy

Flemish energy minister Bart Tommelein has agreed to co-operate with his Walloon region counterpart, Paul Furlan, in the field of renewable energy. The two sides are setting up a working group to look at ways of developing the co-operation.

“Flanders and Wallonia have the same goal: to increase the share of renewables in our energy consumption and to achieve our targets by 2020,” Tommelein said after the meeting, which he described as “friendly and constructive”. “By working together we can only make each other stronger.”

“The regions can only win from this sort of co-operation,” Furlan added. “For the sake of our people, we will make more of a co-operative effort for the development of renewable energy.”

In related news, Tommelein announced a distribution plan for 2,500 new charging stations for electric cars in Flanders by 2020, with an assurance of at least one in every municipality. Each station allows two cars to charge at a time.

Tommelein also hopes to have 60,000 electric cars on the road by that time; the current total is 12,000. The government has already announced a premium for electric cars to encourage more people to buy, despite the higher purchase price.

The lack of charging stations is another disincentive, which is the reason behind the distribution plan, drawn up with the co-operation of network managers Eandis and Infrax.

The municipalities, he said, have been informed of how many stations they would require, with the leader being Antwerp at 314. Municipal councils now have to decide whether to work with one of the two network managers, or go it alone.

Photo courtesy mobimix.be