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European super grid

Hypothetical super grid From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

European super grid
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The European super grid is a hypothetical super grid which ultimately would interconnect the various European countries and the regions around Europe's bordersincluding North Africa, Kazakhstan, and Turkeywith a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power grid.[1]

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A conceptual plan of a European super grid linking renewable energy projects such DESERTEC & Medgrid across North Africa, the Middle East and Europe and could serve as the backbone for the hypothetical supersmart grid.
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  Existing links
  Under construction
  Proposed
See also the List of HVDC projects in Europe, which would eventually be part of European Supergrid.

It is envisaged that a European super grid would:[1]

  • lower the cost of power in all participating countries by allowing the entire region to share the most efficient power plants;
  • pool load variability and power station unreliability, reducing the margin of inefficient spinning reserve and standby that have to be supplied;
  • allow for wider use of renewable energy, particularly wind energy, from the concept that "it is always windy somewhere" in particular it tends to be windy in the summer in North Africa, and windy in the winter in Europe;
  • allow wide sharing of the total European hydro power resource, which is about 6 weeks of full load European output;
  • decrease Europe's dependence on imported fuels.

A recent study from the University College Dublin (UCD) Energy Institute indicates that implementing a pan-European 'supergrid' could lead to a 32% reduction in energy costs across the continent.[2]

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Proposed schemes

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The most comprehensive study has been carried out by Dr Gregor Czisch, of Kassel University.[3][1] His study optimised a vast grid covering North Africa, Eastern Europe, Norway, and Iceland. His study ran a number of scenarios, wind, concentrating solar power (CSP), nuclear etc., and the optimisation showed that all European power could largely come from wind energy, with relatively low amounts of combustion plant needed during universal low wind periods. Furthermore, the study showed that no new storage would be required; existing hydro would be sufficient. The total cost, including for new combustion plant, fuelled by biomass, the cost of the interconnections, the inefficiency of starting and stopping the combustion plant, all indicated a power price at the same as Germany was paying in 2005.

A number of other specific schemes have been proposed to create super grids of varying extent within Europe. These include:

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On 24 November 2011, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Medgrid and Desertec Industry Initiative (Dii) to study, design and promote an interconnected electrical grid with Desertec & Medgrid projects.[10][11][12][13] Medgrid together with Desertec would serve as the backbone of a European super grid; the benefits of investing in HVDC technology are being assessed to reach the final goal of establishing the SuperSmart Grid.[14]

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Evaluations

A report by Pöyry stated that a super grid would only partially reduce the problems from intermittent renewable energy production. While it found that spreading renewables across Europe produced a smoothing effect, large scale weather patterns would impact many European countries at similar times. This still results in large highs and lows of energy output. However this report does not consider the super grid covering the much larger area as the Czisch study, which would further smooth energy output to some extent.[15][16]

See also

References

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