Europe’s Power Grid Grows Toward Interconnection

by Stuart Burns on JANUARY 8, 2015

Style: Commentary Category: Macroeconomics, Public Policy

When we think of countries rich in energy production we think of the US and particularly Texas with its oil and gas industry. We think of Saudi Arabia and it’s oil, gas and, possibly one day, solar. Maybe we think of Canada and it’s hydroelectric and tar sands, but per capita the richest energy hub has to be Norway.

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Little Norway. In terms of population it has just 5 million people and a landmass of less than 150,000 square miles. Much less than Texas and only about the size of Montana. Yet with massive oil and gas reserves, 256 gigawatts of hydroelectric power production, sustainable forests and the potential for tidal power in its fjords Norwegians pretty much top the pile when it comes to global per capita income and ownership of energy resources.

Yet sitting on all that energy isn’t, in itself, terribly profitable. So, copper producers are not alone in hoping to see the country expand its power sharing network of undersea cables with the rest of Europe. Norway just agreed to a $2.4 billion/420 mile subsea cable to carry 1.4 GW of spare hydroelectric supply to the energy-starved UK market, said by some to be teetering on the edge of blackouts if it’s madcap race to low emissions by 2025 hinders investment in stable supply sources.

The UK is mandated by the Climate Change Act to reduce it’s 1990 CO2 emissions by at least 80% by 2050, the fourth carbon budget (2023-27) will therefore require that emissions be reduced by 50% from 1990 levels by 2025. Likewise, Germany’s inexplicable early shutdown of its nuclear capacity has left the country dangerously low on generating capacity and actually emitting more emissions than it did 4 years ago when coal-fired plants were brought online to keep the lights burning. Norwegian transmission company Statnett, which already has undersea interconnector links with Denmark and the Netherlands, is said by the FT to be working on a 300-mile subsea cable to Germany at a similar cost to the UK project.

Enterprising as the Norwegians are, they are not alone in driving the interdependence of Europe’s power grids. A joint venture between the UK’s National Grid and Elia, its Belgian counterpart called project Nemo will see an interconnector linking Kent in the UK and Zeebrugge in Belgium that is expected to add an additional 1 GW to the UK’s electrical grid. The UK already has an existing network of international connections between the UK and France, the Netherlands and Ireland. Further connections help the national grids even out the supply from variable sources like wind with demand spikes that rarely coincide across different European time zones.

Copper demand for undersea cabling and associated onshore transmission and facilities will run in the tens of thousands of tons. Local cable manufacturers are hoping much of the business will remain in the EU. As an alternative to investing in yet more wind farms and with the benefit of making more efficient use of existing generating capacity you have to say these projects are welcome and, indeed, overdue. Just a pity they are not being driven by the EU but left to commercial interests to make them happen, but, then again, left to the politicians they would probably still be on the drawing board.

http://agmetalminer.com/2015/01/08/europes-power-grid-grows-toward-interconnection/