Ellen Macarthur Foundation. Rethink the future

Clean power plants of the world, unite!

• by Joss Blériot
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• 20 Aug 2010
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The “Supergrid”: re-thinking Europe’s energy network

Diversifying sources of energy is key, but when it comes to renewable sources, plants are often set in remote locations and getting the power to the end users can be a challenge in itself. This issue has been acknowledged by nine European countries, who have last autumn signed a deal to start working on an efficient network – also known as “Supergrid” – around offshore windfarms and the North Sea.

Renewables are mostly weather-dependent, which means that they need to be diverse and complementary to provide a credible alternative. Should one source’s output drop, another one has to be able to kick in and fill the void: hence the crucial need for connectivity. Already in place on a town-to-town scale in some parts of Northern Europe, networks of clean power plants could be taken a few steps further in the European Union in the near future. The heads of nine European countries recently have thrown the bases of a renewable energy supergrid around the North Sea: the master plan aims at linking offshore windfarms in its first phase, and then connect various renewable energy generation sources (dams, solar plants, biomass etc).

According to an article published on the United Nations University website (initially written by Alok Jha for The Guardian):

Connected to Norway’s many hydro-electric power stations, [the supergrid] could act as a giant 30GW battery for Europe’s clean energy, storing electricity when demand is low and be a major step towards a continent-wide supergrid that could link into the vast potential of solar power farms in North Africa.

Saharan sunshine has been coveted for years, and recent developments (notably helped by the German and French governments) have made the headlines, due to the staggering potential of sun-drenched North-African deserts. Linking that natural “reservoir” with the embryo of Northern Europe’s renewable energy supergrid would of course bring huge benefits, and more and more connectivity projects are being conceived at the moment – like the Desertec initiative, which is seen as a potential “plug in” for the Supergrid: bringing together Germany’s biggest engineering and power companies, Desertec is a large scale Concentrated Solar Power programme, aiming to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity by 2050. Even though it’s not that easy to believe, the sun provides earth with as much energy every hour as human civilization uses every year (source: Nature issue 443, Sept. 2006)!

Remember, the European Union has committed to sourcing 20% of its energy from renewables by 2020: in order to achieve that goal, a major revamp of the system needs to happen, and the bigger the scale, the faster the objectives will be met. Financing the structure will of course an issue, and the precise amount of money needed to fund the programme has not been calculated yet. But political will is strong, and the governments of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland have signed the initial treaty, and the programme is approved and scientifically validated by the European Union’s Institute for Energy.

http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/europes-renewable-energy-supergrid/
More about the Desertec Foundation http://www.desertec.org/en/concept/

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