Imagining A Global New Energy SuperGrid

New HVDC prototype and powerful economic analysis make the case for a global energy grid based on 100% renewable energy

20 January 2022 (Renewables Now)

“…[An industrial scale prototype of a next generation high-voltage, direct current (HVDC) power transmission technology] could pave the way for a global electricity grid, based on renewable energy…[University of Birmingham researchers expect innovations] that improve the reliability and efficiency…[An economic analysis showed] that coupling HVDC transmission with 100% renewable energy generation can deliver significant cost-savings (a minimum of 20%) when the world’s continents are joined together by a global energy supply grid…

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…[The] vision for the global grid involves connecting renewable energy supply from 14 regions [including the European Union, North Africa and the Middle East, Eastern Russia, Western Russia, Central, South, East and South East Asia, Oceania, Western, Eastern and North-eastern North America, and South America], which span all continents and all time zones…

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…[Theoretically, the plan would increase the availability and decrease the cost] of renewable energy…[and] use renewable energy to provide a vital safety mechanism for controlling frequency dips in national power grids…[The analysis included renewable energy supply, global electricity demand, and] transmission costs over land and sea, potential power losses during transmission, and the operational and management costs of an HVDC-based global grid…[Adopting this approach regionally has been estimated to reduce the cost of electricity] for Europe, North-East Asia and North America respectively…” click here for more

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