News
2015-06-10
40 people to attend LIFE Elia visit in Belgium
It has been a real pleasure to host 40 people at our LIFE Elia event in Belgium on June 10th and 11th.
TSO from all over Europe
One of LIFE Elia's mission is to communicate on the results obtained in the project. This is the reason why the team travelled in Europe to present the project and to show how the main outputs could feed other TSO.
After having visited around 15 countries, the time was coming to host an event in Belgium so that the people we met could actually see the LIFE Elia's achievements on site.
In total, we had 40 people that registered the event, from 22 institutions (mainly TSO, but also Ministries, representative of ENTSO-E and NGO) coming from 16 different European Member States.
2 days visit : cost-benefit analysis and on site actions
There were two main objectives during the two days visit : present the results of the cost-benefit analysis and show on site achievements in South Belgium.
A general introduction was given in Elia's headquarter in Brussels, and we had speeches from Ilse Tant (Elia) and Jean-François Lesigne (RTE). Then the team presented the project's progress and Johan Mortier (Elia) presented the Belgian electrical network.
Presenting the cost-benefit analysis
Alongside with Elia, we just completed an economic cost/benefit analysis to assess how profitable it can be to manage forest corridors in a different way. We found that, even considering a worst-case scenario, alternative methods of vegetation management are from 1,4 to 3,9 (depending on the action) times cheaper than conventional management on a 30 years scale. In a global context of costs reduction, this is a major argument for TSO to adopt another vision of nature management.
On site visit
In total, we visited 4 sites spread across Wallonia, in the Southern part of Belgium. Each site illustrated a special context : type of ownership (private or public), potential for natural habitats, landusers hobbies, importance of the landscape, farming activities...
We started by Werbomont, a site located right on a famous site for water uptake from a well-known brand named Spa.
Then we headed for Ferrières, a good example of what sheep can achieve in terms of vegetation management. The implication of the mayor has also to be underlined.
On the second day, we visited the Aye site, showing a network of ponds and nice forest edges.
We ended up in Nassogne to show slow-growing vegetation areas with challenges linked to hunting activities.
A dynamic for the future
We also organised a brainstorming on perspectives at European level. Outcomes from this session revealed a great interest for the participants to keep on developing and sharing on vegetation management issues.
The team is currently working on the ways to extend this dynamic.