Supergrid Information
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Why have an HVDC Grid? | News | Priorities | Diary |
Against Supergrid | Barriers | Who opposes HVDC? |
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Until recently we have always built power stations near the need for electricity. Electricity travelled a short distance. It is fortunate it did because the A.C. Grids employed all over Europe would lose a massive 45% of power for every 1000 km of travel.
Renewables do not allow this. There are fantastic resources of power available but we have to go to them. For example the North African Desert could alone supply the worlds energy needs if we could only transmit the electricity (see plan, and Desertec ). Tidal and wind resources are scattered around the coastline and are not necessarily near centres of need. Geothermal resources are substantial ...but in Turkey and Iceland.
A High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Supergrid is far more effective at transmission. A cable 1/3 of the diameter of the equivalent A.C.transmission cable will carry electricity 1,000km at a loss of perhaps 4%.
In addition if we are to acheive consistency of output we need to be able to link renewables so that if the wind is blowing in Spain but not Britain we can transport the electricity to where it is needed. In short a wide area needs to be linked up to make sense of renewables.
If we are to achieve the emissions targets we have set ourselves
- and it is vital that we do -
then a Supergrid is not optional - it is essential.
Every day delayed is a day's loss in the installation of environmentally friendly generation capacity.