According to a story on EurActiv.com, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy are supporting a plan that would involve the construction of massive solar plants in North Africa. Energy from the plants would be delivered to European consumers via a new high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system.

The idea is based on the construction of a €45 billion high voltage direct current (DC) grid that could transfer electricity produced by Saharan and North African solar installations to consumers thousands of kilometres away. The construction of a new DC grid would be necessary since most of the EU’s existing power grids operate on the basis of alternating current (AC) and as such lose too much electricity over long distances to make such a project viable.

To call this plan incredibly ambitious would be an understatement. Between the price tag and logistics it is likely that such a project would take many years to actually complete. The idea of using HVDC to transport reneweable power over long distances is becoming a popular one. The state of California is investigating the prospect of accessing clean energy from Vancouver, British Columbia.

In order to bring clean supply to the masses we need access to the paths between the energy sources and the energy sink points. The sources are at the assets like major wind farms. The sinks are points like New York City and Los Angeles where large amounts of power are taken off the grid to serve customer.

In a perfect world our clean energy sources would be located in close proximity to the demand. Unfortunately this is rarely the case. Political, environmental and safety (like windmills throwing ice) issues typically prohibit the siting of renewable resources near major population centers. And if the aforementioned factors aren’t an issue then there probably won’t be enough space available anyway.

We need plans in place that will allow for the expansion of transmission networks so that clean sources of energy can get to where they are needed most. The proposal of hundreds of miles of high voltage transmission lines is rarely a popular one. But people must decide whether the negative impact of transmission lines outweighs the negative impacts of foreign oil dependency and harmful emissions.

Here are a few of the initiatives currently underway that involved the development of electric transmission that will support the flow of clean energy to populated areas.

National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETC) – The Energy Policy Act of 2005 contained a provision that allowed the Federal Government to identify deficiencies in U.S. transmission networks. According to an FAQ document published by the Department of Energy the NIETC, “…is a way of focusing attention on the areas of the country that are most congested – and whose consumers stand o benefit most from alleviation of it.”

In October of 2007 two corridors were designated by the DOE as indicated below.

• Mid-Atlantic Area National Corridor (includes some or all counties in DE, OH, MD, NJ, NY, PA, VA, WV, and DC); and
  
• Southwest Area National Corridor (seven counties in Southern California and three counties in western Arizona).

More information on the progress of this initiative can be found at the Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability.

California Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) – This project specifically addresses the need to build new transmission in order to facilitate the delivery of renewable energy to California cities. According to the RETI website, “RETI will assess all competitive renewable energy zones in California and possibly also in neighboring states that can provide significant electricity to California consumers by the year 2020.”

A very detailed presentation on this initiative from an meeting in October 2007 is located here.

ISO New England HVDC Upgrades – The New England electricity market operator (ISO-NE) is discussing the addition of an HVDC transmission line from New Brunswick in order to facilitate the flow of power (much of it renewable) from that region.

HVDC or High Voltage Direct Current lines are superior to standard alternating current transmission lines because the effects of line losses are minimized. More on this at Wikipedia.

The discussions on this topic tend to be very technical but the bottom line is that access to clean energy from New Brunswick will benefit New England, especially the high demand area around Boston. Those deeply interested in this topic can peruse the public documents for the New England Transmission Planning Committee.