The Great Eurasian Supergrid
One Grid to Bind Us All
The green transformation cannot be achieved by countries on their own. Integrating different energy sources in different countries, like northern Germany’s wind power with Norway’s hydropower, ensures supply security and stable prices. The result is a win-win for countries and consumers, as the energy transition gets cheaper the better European countries are interconnected. Chancellor Angela Merkel.
GEIDCO, the Global Energy Interconnect, has invested $15 trillion to boost the efficiency and ROI of renewables by moving clean electricity around the globe with the sun, wind, and tides by connecting national grids. The UN says, “GEIDCO will support broader regional integration and peace by providing a new framework for cooperation and creating mutual positive interdependencies between the northeast Asian countries”.
The East Asian Electric Supergrid
The East Asian Electric Supergrid connects the Russian, Chinese, Mongolian, South Korean, North Korean and Japanese grids – through which flows 30% of the world’s energy – providing renewable electricity for the price from China’s ultra-efficient coal-fired plants, 5¢/kWh (vs America’s average 23¢).
Fossil fuel-starved Japan and South Korea will receive solar energy from Mongolia’s immense Gobi Desert, hydropower from Eastern Russia’s vast water resources, and wind power from huge offshore farms in the East China Sea and the Western Pacific. The 250-mile undersea line from China’s Weihai to Incheon will cost $7 billion, and the 700-mile land link from Vladivostok to South Korea, almost as much.
Initially, the partners budgeted for energy storage plants and batteries to buffer fluctuations, but found that the supergrid itself is an effective balancer. When China’s hydropower output falls during winter, Russia’s reaches full capacity in Siberia, and the same applies to wind and solar.
Russia’s 440 power stations, which connect through a two-million mile, single synchronous grid spanning the country, is now linked through the Eurasian Economic grid to Iran, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan, with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Moldova. Turkey’s grid has been connected to the Continental European Grid since 2015 and interconnectors are planned between Africa and Europe.
The Eight Countries Supergrid
After connecting to Spain in the 1990s, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia are synchronized with the pan-European high-voltage transmission network. A 192 km HVDC line, from Sicily to Tunisia, connects the Italian grid to Tunisia’s, while two, 2,000 MW interconnectors will link the Cypriot and Greek grids with Egypt’s and Israel’s this year. Egypt raised the grid capacity between the Mashriq (Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen) and the Arab Maghreb (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia), and the EIJLLPST (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey) interconnection just added the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman.
The ECSA
Measured by connected power, the European Continental Synchronous Area is the world’s largest synchronous grid, supplying 400 million customers in 24 countries. Today, its component national grids are being upgraded to unlock the value of the new energy market.
Impossible Dream?
GEIDCO’s 106 member nations, with forty global offices, have invested $1.6 trillion in eighty generation and transmission projects across Eurasia, Latin America, Africa, North America, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Total investment will reach $27 trillion by 2050.
Says GEIDCO Chairman Liu Zhenya1, “GEIDCO provides a technically advanced, cost-effective, viable, scalable solution to global climate governance, plays a key role in advancing the implementation of the Paris Agreement, and helps win the race against climate change. Best of all, it returns nine dollars for every dollar invested between now and 2050 while boosting economic development and reducing carbon emissions”.
As New Yorkers say, what’s not to like?
Godfree wrote Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the Bottom, and publishes Here Comes China, the weekly newsletter.
Former Chairman of China’s State Grid and the leading authority on grid interconnection and power flow management.