Europe Plans Grid for Array of Renewable Sources
Sun, wind and wave-powered: Europe unites to build renewable energy 'supergrid'
• North Sea countries plan vast clean energy project
• €30bn scheme could offer weather-proof supply
The Guardian (U.K.), Jan. 4, 2010
It would
connect turbines off the wind-lashed north coast of Scotland with
Germany's vast arrays of solar panels, and join the power of waves
crashing on to the Belgian and Danish coasts with the hydro-electric
dams nestled in Norway's fjords: Europe's first electricity grid
dedicated to renewable power will become a political reality this
month, as nine countries formally draw up plans to link their clean
energy projects around the North Sea.
The
network, made up of thousands of kilometres of highly efficient
undersea cables that could cost up to €30bn (£26.5bn), would solve one
of the biggest criticisms faced by renewable power – that unpredictable
weather means it is unreliable.
With a
renewables supergrid, electricity can be supplied across the continent
from wherever the wind is blowing, the sun is shining or the waves are
crashing.
Connected
to Norway's many hydro-electric power stations, it 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.
By
autumn, the nine governments involved – Germany, France, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland and the UK – hope
to have a plan to begin building a high-voltage direct current network
within the next decade. It will be an important step in achieving the
European Union’s pledge that, by 2020, 20% of its energy will come from
renewable sources.
"We
recognise that the North Sea has huge resources, we are exploiting
those in the UK quite intensively at the moment," said the UK's energy
and climate change minister, Lord Hunt. "But there are projects where
it might make sense to join up with other countries, so this comes at a
very good time for us."
More than
100GW of offshore wind projects are under development in Europe, around
10% of the EU's electricity demand, and equivalent to about 100 large
coal-fired plants. The surge in wind power means the continent's grid
needs to be adapted, according to Justin Wilkes of the European Wind
Energy Association (EWEA). An EWEA study last year outlined where these
cables might be built and this is likely to be a starting point for the
discussions by the nine countries.
Renewable
Energyis much more decentralised and is often built in inhospitable
places, far from cities. A supergrid in the North Sea would enable a
secure and reliable energy supply from renewables by balancing power
across the continent.
Norway's
hydro plants – equivalent to about 30 large coal-fired power stations –
could use excess power to pump water uphill, ready to let it rush down
again, generating electricity, when demand is high. "The benefits of an
offshore supergrid are not simply to allow offshore wind farms to
connect; if you have additional capacity, which you will do within
these lines, it will allow power trading between countries and that
improves EU competitiveness," said Wilkes.
The
European Commission has also been studying proposals for a
renewable-electricity grid in the North Sea. A working group in the
EC's energy department, led by Georg Wilhelm Adamowitsch, will produce
a plan by the end of 2010. He has warned that without additional
transmission infrastructure, the EU will not be able to meet its
ambitious targets. Hunt said the EC working group's findings would be
fed into the nine-country grid plan.
The cost
of a North Sea grid has not yet been calculated, but a study by
Greenpeace in 2008 put the price of building a similar grid by 2025 at
€15bn-€20bn. This would provide more than 6,000km of cable around the
region. The EWEA's 2009 study suggested the costs of connecting the
proposed 100GW wind farms and building interconnectors, into which
further wind and wave power farms could be plugged in future, would
probably push the bill closer to €30bn. The technical, planning, legal
and environmental issues will be discussed at the meeting of the nine
this month.
"The
first thing we're aiming for is a common vision," said Hunt. "We will
hopefully sign a memorandum of understanding in the autumn with
ministers setting out what we're trying to do and how we plan to do it."
All those
involved also have an eye on the future, said Wilkes. "The North Sea
grid would be the backbone of the future European electricity
supergrid," he said. This supergrid, which has support from scientists
at the commission's Institute for Energy (IE), and political backing
from both the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Gordon Brown,
would link huge solar farms in southern Europe – producing electricity
either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the sun's heat
to boil water and drive turbines – with marine, geothermal and wind
projects elsewhere on the continent. Scientists at the IE have
estimated it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light
falling on the Sahara and the deserts of the Middle East to meet all
Europe's energy needs.
In this
grid, electricity would be transmitted along high voltage direct
current cables. These are more expensive than traditional
alternating-current cables, but they lose less energy over long
distances.
Hunt
agreed that the European supergrid was a long-term dream, but one worth
making a reality. The UK, like other countries, faced "huge challenges
with our renewables targets," he said. "The 2020 target is just the
beginning and then we've got to aim for 2050 with a decarbonised
electricity supply – so we need all the renewables we can get."
A North
Sea grid could link into grids proposed for a much larger German-led
plan for renewables called the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII).
This aims to provide 15% of Europe's electricity by 2050 or earlier via
power lines stretching across desert and the Mediterranean. The plan
was launched last November with partners including Munich Re, the
world's biggest reinsurer, and some of Germany's biggest engineering
and power companies, including Siemens, E.ON, ABB and Deutsche Bank.
DII is a $400bn (£240bn) plan to use concentrated solar power (CSP) in
southern Europe and northern Africa. This technology uses mirrors to
concentrate the sun's rays on a fluid container, the super-heated
liquid then drives turbines to generate electricity. The technology
itself is nothing new – CSP plants have been running in the United
States for decades and Spain is building many – but the scale of the
DII project would be its biggest deployment ever.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
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