The techno-economic benefits of a globally interconnected world would be lower than those provided by interconnections at the national and subnational level.
This is the main conclusion of On the Techno-economic Benefits of a Global Energy Interconnection, a new paper published by a group of researchers that includes Christian Breyer, professor of solar economy at Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT).
According to the study, a globally interconnected grid could offer a levelized cost of electricity of €52.50/MWh, which is 4% lower than what could be expected with an isolated global energy system. Moreover, a similar energy system would require 4% less installed capacity than a conventional one.
Renewables-based system
Solar and wind, of course, would play a central role in a globally interconnected world. “The achieved cost level of about €20-25/MWh and €25-30/MWh for solar PV and wind energy, respectively, at very good sites, brings both technologies to the forefront as a major source of energy in the 21st century,” the researchers said.
However, they believe that techno-economic analysis alone may not be sufficient to assess the advantages and disadvantages of both options. They argued that a more holistic approach will be necessary.
Energy carriers
In the future, long-distance energy trading might be done in the form of high-density energy carriers such as liquefied synthetic natural gas, synthetic liquid fuels, methanol and ammonia. “A high global granularity of geo-spatial structuring may reveal the relative range of economic benefits generated by power transmission, which may be complemented by progress in understanding future trade patterns for renewable electricity-based power-to-X fuels and chemicals and their respective transportation costs,” the group explained.
This means that the best arrangement for geospatial power sector integration from an economic perspective should be achieved on a regional level.
“A global energy interconnection may be still beneficial, but the respective electricity trade can be expected to be more within the major regions,” the researchers said.
More research
The scientists concluded that more research is needed. “I am a co-founder of the Desertec Foundation, so I still have a strong bias pro long power lines, but we have not found any long power line in the world to be really beneficial,” Breyer told pv magazine.
Last year, Breyer and his team published a study describing the advantages of a European energy system based on renewables to offer the best aspects of the energy-independent ‘prosumer nations’ and pan-continental ‘supergrids’. In that paper, the group claimed a smart grid approach – midway between a super-grid and completely decentralized energy systems – would be necessary to help Europe to achieve an energy mix based on 100% renewable energy by 2050 – an ambition outlined by Breyer in a pv magazine interview.
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The scientists concluded that more research is needed. “I am a co-founder of the Desertec Foundation, so I still have a strong bias pro long power lines, but we have not found any long power line in the world to be really beneficial,” Breyer told pv magazine.“
Aren’t large quantities of electricity lost over transmission lines? What is wrong with distributed and community solar?
Community solar is a disaster because there is no incentives to be efficient and cut costs. The incentive is to increase costs and take huge salaries because there is no investor to keep them happy, and no need to make profits. Rate payers are forced to pay for high costs and high salaries.
Thanks for your comment Talis, please give us some examples of community solar projects which have raised project costs in a move directly linked to salary increases.
SUPERGRID NO-NOs
Half a century ago Buckminster Fuller and Medard Gabel promoted the global super-grid concept. One of the serious down-sides to such a supergrid that remains so today is the risk associated with some nations replacing their biodiversity rich ecosystems (i.e., Amazonian, Indonesian, Congo rain forests) to install mega-hydrodams and/or large-scale biofuel plantations.
Fortunately the incredible price drop in solar and wind power, coupled with the declining cost of energy storage, as well as an expanding pool of low-cost, end-use/demand-side efficiency gains, makes these two ecosystem destroying options (dams and plantations) uncompetitive.
However, autocratic governments and crony capitalism have never been stopped by such market-based decisionmaking, given the immense profits that corruption siphons off for their personal greed. The other serious down-side to a supergrid is its ever-present vulnerability to cyberattacks by terrorists or military, as well as from climate-triggered weather catastrophes.
Especially today, with the exponential growth in converging disruptive technologies (i.e., synergisms among electrification, digitalization, Internetization, Modularization and Miniaturization, AI-ification) there is a compelling case and evidence that the hierarchical centralized power plant and pipeline energy system model that so well served the last industrial revolution’s feverish economic growth can be and should be superseded by a fractal network energy system model. Whereby ultra-efficient electrified buildings with onsite solar PV and energy storage become nanogrids by being outfitted with wireless smart sensor networks streaming big data through intelligent algorithms that provide continuous commissioning of the building performance to ensure it is operating in its design space, as well as capable of participating in peer-to-peer trade transactions.
These buildings, in turn, are connected together into neighborhood microgrids, which, in turn, are linked together so that the city becomes a mini-grid. Cities linked together form regional macrogrids, while electric vehicles become portable, interoperable picogrids. Supergrids become a last resort, and the marginal exception rather than the backbone of the energy system.
While onsite solar PV is still more costly than large-scale solar and wind farms, compelling arguments have been made that the marginal extra costs should be financed through sovereign-backed long-term, low-interest government bonds because of the immense national security value against the threat of grid or pipeline collapse — a very real externality cost that the U.S. Dept of Defense is addressing and insuring against by mandating all military bases, installations and facilities implement “islandable” microgrids with onsite and distributed power and energy storage systems capable of sustaining operations even when the grid or pipelines collapse. Civil society needs to adopt this real homeland security energy system model, and in so doing, avoid becoming seas of chaos.