Federal Development Plan 2024 - 2034 

Background and process 

The general provisions applicable to drawing up this development plan are contained in the Electricity Act and the Royal Decree of 20 December 2007 concerning the procedure for the drafting, approval and publication of the transmission system development plan. In this context, the development plan: 

• covers a ten-year period (2024-2034) ; 
• concerns voltage levels 380 kV, 220 kV, 150 kV and 110 kV ; 
• includes a detailed estimate of transmission capacity needs, with an explanation of the hypotheses used to calculate them ; 
• sets out the investment programme to be implemented by the system operator in order to meet these needs ; 
• takes account of the need for sufficient reserve capacity ; 
• must be compatible with ENTSO-E’s Ten-Year Network Development Plan (2022) ; 
• takes account of the latest prospective study on electricity security of supply by 2030 (in French) and the monitoring report (in French) carried out by the Directorate-General for Energy in cooperation with the Federal Planning Bureau. 

The Development Plan 2024-2034 is the product of a consultative process involving the CREG, the Minister responsible for the Marine Environment, the Regional Governments and the Federal Council for Sustainable Development.  

The environmental impact relating to the Development Plan has been set out in a specific report submitted for advice to the federal SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) Advisory Committee, in application of the provisions of the Act of 13 February 2006 on the evaluation of the environmental impact of certain plans and programmes and on public participation in drawing up plans and programmes involving the environment. 

The Development Plan and associated environmental impact report have been submitted for public consultation. This consultation procedure took place from 2 November 2022 to 16 January 2023. 

The approval process 

The final version of the Development Plan 2024-2034 has been approved by Mrs Van der Straeten, the minister for Energy, on 5 May 2023. In the ministerial decree approving the Development Plan, the minister also asks Elia to further consider several aspects about offshore grid development in the framework of an adaptation of the Development Plan.  

In preparation of this approval, the Directorate-General for Energy drew up a declaration (in French and in Dutch) to explain: 

• how environmental considerations had been integrated into the plan; 
• what had been done to take account of the environmental impact report and the results of the consultations; 
• the reasons for adopting the plan in its current form, as opposed to all the other reasonable alternatives under consideration, along with details of the main measures that will be taken to monitor the significant environmental effects of the plan’s implementation. 

Documents 

The following documents are available in French and Dutch: