The above Bloomberg Businessweek Report dated 9 June, 2021 flags up a looming game changer in global renewable energy dynamics. As solar, wind and other renewable energies are intermittent, a great deal of the energy produced is simply wasted. If such energies could be transmitted across regions or even continents without massive loss of power, this would open up a brave new world of exploiting gigantic reservoirs of inexhaustible renewables such as the world's largest deserts or wind plains.
Transmission across extremely long distances depends on cross-region infrastructural capacities of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power lines. This is catching on in Western nations including the United States, Japan and Western Europe. HVDC power lines become economical over distances higher than about 500 miles (800km) above ground, and 31 miles (50km) for buried and submarine cables.
According to the Report, China has both a manufacturing and technological edge in Ultra-High-Voltage Direct Current (UHVDC) transmission lines, and has taken a lead in proposing global technical standards and governance for them. (High voltage cables are classed as 500 kilovolts and above, while ultra-high voltage—a Chinese specialty—operate at 800 kilovolts or above.)
The report says:
"If transcontinental, submarine electricity superhighways indeed lie in our shared future, China is showing the way. In December, it completed a $3.45 billion, 970-mile-long, 800-kilovolt UHVDC line to carry solar- and wind-generated power from the high Tibetan plains to China’s center. That followed construction of a 1.1 million-volt cable that can transmit up to 12,000 megawatts of power—a little more than the entire installed generation capacity of Ireland—from the deserts and mountains of Xinjiang province to the doorstep of Shanghai, almost 2,000 miles east."
"The global supergrid effort has been spearheaded by Liu Zhenya, a former head of the State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC), who chairs the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization, a UN-backed body based in Beijing. Geidco’s phased plan starts by strengthening national grids and moves on to building regional networks, before finally—around 2070—completing construction of a full 18-channel Earth-spanning grid." (see map below)
"SGCC, which is the world’s largest utility, has been on a buying spree that’s enabling it to do some of that first-stage strengthening. Since 2008, it has acquired stakes as high as 85% in electricity distribution companies in the Philippines, Portugal, Australia, Hong Kong, Brazil, Greece, Italy, and last year, Oman. Other Chinese companies have also been buying shares in foreign grids."
However, it's very early days yet. Much of the seemingly grandiose plan remains a desk top exercise. Only the first stage of a Pakistan-China link, due to go live later this year, marks an exception.
Nevertheless, obvious security concerns are beginning to ring alarm bells. For sometime to come, any progress with trans-regional grids is likely to be measured and piecemeal. That said, Climate Change and Sustainable Development issues are poised to accelerate the dynamics for HDVC or UHVDC cross-region transmissions. Watch this space.
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