The closures of the Doel 3 reactors in September 2022, Tihange 2 in January 2023, and more recently Doel 1 in February 2025, have reduced the contribution of this type of energy, which continues to be key to ensuring the country's energy sovereignty.
Plans to extend the useful life of existing power plants and the commitment to SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) as part of the EU-SMR-LFR project represent a turning point for the industry, which will multiply the demand for nuclear facilities in a context of increasing local consumption.
Sarens has recently worked on various projects for maintenance and overhaul tasks at the Diel and Tihange power plants, aimed at ensuring their contribution to the grid, which have earned it recognition such as the KCD Contractor Award in April this year.
Nuclear energy will continue to be one of the main pillars of Belgium's energy system, with a forecast contribution of around 35% of all electricity consumed and 40% of the energy produced in the country. In addition, nuclear energy will continue to be a stabilising factor for the grid in the face of the intermittency of renewables, which accounted for 29.8% of Belgium's total energy mix in 2024.
Despite the closure of the Doel 3 reactor in September 2022, Tihange 2 in January 2023 and Doel 1 in February 2025, in accordance with the phase-out law passed in 2003, factors such as the global energy crisis of recent years, the growing demand for data centres due to the consumption of artificial intelligence in the country, and the search for energy independence for the country (in 2024, Belgium imported 10.6 TWh of electricity) have led the government to repeal this regulation and to reintroduce the use of the most modern reactors to maintain at least 4 GWe of this energy in the country's energy mix.
It is foreseeable that this drive, which has seen reactors such as Doel 4 and Tihange 3 extend their useful life until 2024, will also require significant refuelling and scheduled maintenance work to ensure incident-free service. The contribution of specialists such as Sarens is therefore essential to facilitate these tasks. Sarens, world leader in heavy lifting, engineered transport and crane rental services, recently participated in maintenance and overhaul work at the Doel plant, which earned it recognition from the plant itself in its KCD Contractor Awards (Kerncentrale Doel Contractor Awards) for the high quality and efficiency of its work.
This is not the only work carried out by Sarens in the nuclear sector in the region. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Sarens played a strategic role in the construction of the Doel power plant, as well as the Tihange plant. Since then, it has collaborated in maintenance tasks and upgrades of the technologies used in both plants. In fact, Sarens recently participated in maintenance work carried out on the Tihange 3 reactor, which began in April this year and concluded with the reactor returning to operation in July.
According to Bart Minnen, Country Manager for Sarens in Belgium, “our company has always strongly supported an energy mix that is sufficiently diversified to meet domestic consumption, thereby reducing dependence on third countries. But for this to happen, our power plants must undergo thorough maintenance programmes to avoid outages that jeopardise the balance of the grid. Sarens, with its extensive knowledge of the infrastructure of active power plants, as well as the development and installation of SMRs, is the ideal strategic partner for the Belgian and global energy sector."
Sarens has extensive experience in carrying out large projects related to nuclear energy throughout the European continent, such as participating in the construction of the EPR reactor at Flamanville (France), providing nuclear industrial logistics, engineering, handling, heavy lifting and special transport services. Sarens also played a decisive role in the construction of Hinkley Point C in the United Kingdom, deploying the SGC-250 crane, known as ‘Big Carl’, the world's largest of its kind, with a capacity of more than 5,000 tons, used to lift heavy prefabricated components, including sections of the reactor steel cladding and turbine generator columns.
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