Renewable Energy Represents 15.6% of Luxembourg's Energy Consumption

The energy department of the Luxembourg Institute for Regulation (ILR) has published key figures for the electricity and natural gas markets for the year 2020.

The ILR noted in this report that the production of electricity from renewable energy sources continues to increase: in 2020, it amounted to 979 GWh, compared to 802 GWh in 2019, and thus represents 15.6% of national energy consumption. The production of electricity from non-renewable energy sources in Luxembourg represented 3.7% of natioanl energy consumption, whilst the rest (80.7%) was imported, mainly from Germany.

The electricity production capacity in Luxembourg increased from 488 MW to 522 MW, with the share of renewable energy rising from 377 MW to 421 MW. Since 2019, photovoltaic capacity has been growing steadily: up 27 MW in 2020 and already up 41 MW for the first half of 2021.

The ILR also recalled that residents can use their own photovoltaic production to cover the consumption of their household before injecting the surplus into the distribution network. With the elimination of charges and fees for self-consumed electricity in 2020, self-consumption is therefore proving to be economical and ecological, according to the ILR, particularly in the current context of rising energy prices.

Moreover, residents can now share their own renewable electricity production with other consumers living in the same building or neighbourhood, as part of collective self-consumption or renewable energy communities. In this context, the ILR has defined the standardised sharing rules that will be applied by the grid operator to distribute electricity production among the members of the sharing group. The ILR has also approved the standard agreements that the members of such groups will have to conclude with their network operator.

Another novelty: Now that smart electricity meters have been installed in almost all households, residents can consult or download their quarter-hourly metering data on the customer portals of the websites of most electricity suppliers and network operators. Access to this data and making it available to service providers is necessary to allow the development of services promoting the energy transition, according to the ILR.

The full report can be consulted, in French. via the following link: https://web.ilr.lu/FR/Particuliers/Electricite/Publications/Rapports-et-etudes.