Supergrid Information
| Economics | Glossary | Renewables |
Why have an HVDC Grid? | News | Priorities | Diary |
Against Supergrid | Barriers | Who opposes HVDC? |
|---|
Statistics
Concentrated Solar Power statistics
On a back of envelope basis - and purely for effect ( there are many reasons why all of europes power cannot be provided by Solar Power)
Each square km of the Sahara Desert receives the equivalent solar Energy of 1.5m barrels of oil annually.
1.5m barrels of oil is the eqivalent of 204,645 tonnes of oil (oil converter website)
Assume Concentrated Solar Power technology is appoximately 5% efficient in converting sun to electricity
Assume (5% x 204,645) TOe per sq km
= approx 10,232 Tonnes of Oil Equivalent per sq Km
Taking the Current Gross European demand as (below) 1,825,000,000 tonnes of oil equivalent
the entire (ie including transport, and non electrical energy use) European demand (admittedly wholly unrealistic but theoretical) would be satisfied by the use of about 178,000 km sq
178,000 sq km is an area approximately 425km x 425 km
Realistically perhaps 10% of Europe's resources might be supplied in this manner in which case approximately an area 135 x 135 sq km might be needed
Europe's Energy Demand
Current Gross European (EU 27) Inland Energy Consumption 2008 was 1,825 MTOe (megatonnes of oil Equivalent) (source para 1.1)
Total final energy consumption (excluding deliveries to energy conversion sector and energy industries themselves) 1,176 MTOe (source para 1.1)
In 2006 Transport consumed almost 1/3 of final energy in the EU
Renewables accounted for 129.15 MTOe in 2006 in the EU 27 (source para 1.1)
Iceland has been estimated to have Geothermal Capabiility of approximately 15TwH/year
Europe (25) electricity demand was in 2004 - 3,179.132 TwH (source Eurostat)
Amount of wind power generated in 2005 83TwH (about 2.3% of European electricity Demand)
Indigenous production provided 46% of the energy used in Europe in 2008 (however this includes nuclear) - source EU.
1,816 MTOE of energy was consumed in the EU in 2005 - source p55 EU Energy handbook