At first, it was intended to basically burn the excess electricity produced at night by the first generation of nuclear power plants in Belgium, at a time when it was difficult to reduce their power output on demand.
From then on, because highways were always lightened up it was unnecessary to use reflective paint and signage on the highways.
And today, we're left with signage and paint that are difficult to read at night unless the highways are lined with streetlights, which makes streetlights necessary even though the power plants have been able to adapt to load for a long time now. You can really notice it on the dark sections that do exist, signage is actually difficult to see when in most other countries reflective signage is almost easier to see at night than by day.
Now the streetlights are being slowly turned off, some are being replaced with LEDs, and some of the signage is being updated to reflective, but I don't know if there's any official roadmap to eventually arrive to dark highways with reflective signage.
That article seems to point to potentially larger conflicts of interest:
The official explanation is that it helps road safety and provides security. But critics doubt this and say the phenomenon sheds light not only on Belgium’s roads but also on a mutually profitable relationship among its politicians, electricity distributors and main energy supplier, Electrabel.
At first, it was intended to basically burn the excess electricity produced at night by the first generation of nuclear power plants in Belgium, at a time when it was difficult to reduce their power output on demand.
From then on, because highways were always lightened up it was unnecessary to use reflective paint and signage on the highways.
And today, we're left with signage and paint that are difficult to read at night unless the highways are lined with streetlights, which makes streetlights necessary even though the power plants have been able to adapt to load for a long time now. You can really notice it on the dark sections that do exist, signage is actually difficult to see when in most other countries reflective signage is almost easier to see at night than by day.
Now the streetlights are being slowly turned off, some are being replaced with LEDs, and some of the signage is being updated to reflective, but I don't know if there's any official roadmap to eventually arrive to dark highways with reflective signage.