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Europe builds a renewable energy super grid
Intelligent electricity networks that combine IT with electric transfer technology are being planned
Renewable energy super grid is an initiative that would combine energy network all across Europe. If energy producers and users were connected it would be possible, for northern Europe at times to benefit from solar energy produced in southern Europe, whereas at other times southern Europe could benefit from hydro of wind energy of the north. This would eliminate one problem concerning some forms of renewable energy, namely the fact that it doesn’t always shine, wind isn’t always blowing and it isn’t always raining (hydro power), therefore these forms of renewable energy are a bit difficult to rely on. However, with Europe-wide super grid different all corners of Europe would be connected and this problem could be avoided (it’s always shining or wind is blowing somewhere in Europe). Super grid would be one way to make renewable energy much more competitive than what it is today.
Super grid would also have many interesting features compared to electricity networks used today. First of all, super grid is much more efficient in transporting energy as traditional electricity grids. The most interesting feature of the super grids is their intelligence. Super grids are bidirectional (consumers can both deliver and extract energy from and to the grid) and intelligent in the sense that they can optimize their operation so that during high electricity consumption some less important will be turned down thus removing the need for massive amount of reserve power. In practise, this optimizing might mean for instance that in a time of a sudden power demand, the grid would shut down all refrigerators of some big city for a couple of minutes.
Super grid that would connect the whole Europe might be operational by 2050. Individual countries or groups of countries may be able to get their own sub grids operational before that, in some areas as soon as mid 2010’s.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/03/european-unites-renewable-energy-supergrid
Ympäristö-lehti 8/2009
Opportunity: Improved efficiency and possibilities to utilise renewable energy resources
Threat: European-wide electricity network might be more prone to disturbancies than local networks
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