Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has talked about the idea before, but the One Sun One World One Grid initiative launched in Glasgow now has the backing of more than 80 countries, including Australia, the UK and the US.
The alliance is just one example of a growing movement to create regional and, eventually, global “super grids”: long-distance, high-voltage cables linking each country’s growing renewable power output.
The super grid movement is being driven partly by the need to maintain a smooth flow of power onto electricity grids. Local weather makes the amount of power generated by wind and solar variable, but this becomes less of an issue if the grid is larger and distributed over a wider geographical area.
“The Indian government is keen on links to the Middle East, to help India decarbonize using imported renewable energy,” says Jim Watson at University College London. The UK, one of India’s partners on the One Sun One World One Grid initiative, is also considering new long-distance cables.
A “super grid,” “mega grid,” or “super smart grid” is a future grid that interconnects various countries and regions with a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power grid. It is in fact a wide-area (synchronous) transmission network capable of large-scale transmission of electricity, which makes it possible to trade high volumes of (renewable) electricity across great distances. The extreme case of “super grid” is “global grid” which connects all continents. The concept of a super grid dates back to the 1950s. However, interest in such grids has been accelerated recently in the context of monetizing stranded renewable energy resources through transnational export. Illustrates potential options for global super grids. Some recent super grid projects include the European super grid, the Asia Pacific Super Grid the South-East Asia or ASEAN Power Grid, and the North-East Asian Super Grid, which connects the five countries of Japan, South Korea, North Korea, China, and Mongolia. The more extensive version of this proposal is the so-called Asia Super Grid (ASG), which can not only connect the aforementioned five countries, but can also be extended to Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and India
Last September, the UK started importing hydropower from Norway via a 724-kilometer subsea cable. In the coming years, the cable is expected to be used mostly to export electricity from the UK’s growing number of offshore wind farms so that it can be stored in hydropower facilities in Norway and released onto grids as needed.
In 2022, UK start-up X links will try to persuade the UK government to guarantee a minimum price for electricity generated at a mega wind and solar farm to be built in Morocco that could power UK homes via a 3800,-kilometer subsea cable.
X links is also working with Australian firm Sun Cable on its proposal to build the world’s largest solar farm in the north of Australia and connect it, via Darwin, to Singapore through a 4200-kilometer cable, to supply it with low-carbon electricity. In September, Sun Cable gained approval to route the high-voltage cable through Indonesian waters.
2022 may also see progress on efforts to build an “energy island” in the North Sea, which would act as a vast hub for offshore wind farms that can supply several European countries. UK company National Grid recently told New Scientist it is in talks about the pioneering project.
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