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UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

110 points by redcalx 4y ago

_fizz_buzz_ 4y ago
This sounds like brexiteer project. Doubt this will actually happen. 3800 km of undersea HVDC cable just to circumvent the EU. 3800 km is the distance from St.Petersburg to Marocco.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  I mean it probably would've been very hard to route it through Europe too. Morocco already has powerlines with Spain, but I'm not sure if it would make sense to transport that much energy through the existing grid? Especially since very high voltage powerlines are inherently more efficient, so a direct link might make sense. I'm not familiar with how the EU grid is laid out though, and the little knowledge I have is pretty specific the Québec Grid.
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    The European grids, and some neighbouring countries, are shown here: https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/ https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/
  - KarlKemp 4y ago
    It’d be stupid to run a cable straight through the EU, as well, yes. You want to be part of a large and diverse grid. Then, you add or reinforce long-distance connections based on observed patterns. So the UK should get over itself, connect to larger grid that’s already operating on three sides. The same is probably true for Morocco, and at some point these photovoltaic-in-the-desert ideas will become economical, although I’m not entirely sure if we are there yet (the desert is less ideal for solar cells than one thinks, because heat isn’t linear proportional to irradiation).
    - sgt101 4y ago
      It is connected, via France. There was a fire recently, but it's a strategic connection. https://ifa1interconnector.com/ https://ifa1interconnector.com/ Also the UK is connected to Norway https://northsealink.com/ https://northsealink.com/ And Ireland also https://www.eirgridgroup.com/customer-and-industry/interconnection/ https://www.eirgridgroup.com/customer-and-industry/interconn...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - masklinn 4y ago
      > It’d be stupid to run a cable straight through the EU, as well, yes. Politically, maybe. Technically and financially, not at all. There’s 3GW of interconnection between france and the UK with a 4th under construction, and france is a broker / hub between germany, italy, spain, and the UK (as well as its own production).
      - justincormack 4y ago
        France won’t let solar from Spain into their grid as it undermines their nuclear financing. So from Morocco is off the table. A Spain UK connection was planned and seems sensible.
        masklinn 4y ago
        > France won’t let solar from Spain into their grid as it undermines their nuclear financing. Complete nonsense. France buys renewable electricity from neighbours all the time, both for itself and to sell to other neighbours. France also sells its own electricity. A new interconnect between france and Spain is under construction (the biscay bay line), in order to bring the exchange capacity between them up to 5GW.
- giorgioz 4y ago
  Yes it does, I'm not sure why they can't just put wind turbines in the UK. I'm sure there is plenty of wind there too. Also it would seem the south of France or Portugal would be much closer for the solar part.
  - varajelle 4y ago
    > I'm not sure why they can't just put wind turbines in the UK. From the article: > When domestic renewable energy generation in the United Kingdom drops due to low winds and short periods of sun, the project will harvest the benefits of long hours of sun in Morocco
  - Kognito 4y ago
    For context the UK is already massively invested in wind turbines, with a lot more investment going into off-shore farms. On a good windy day, current capacity might satisfy ~40% of grid demand and this will only increase. However, the wind doesn't always blow and a cache of coal-fired power stations are kept on hand to quickly be able to plug the gap. If this is economical enough - I'd be all for it rather than paying energy companies to keep coal-fired power stations ready to belch out smog at a moments notice.
    - justincormack 4y ago
      Gas fired not coal. Its faster to spin up.
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    Right now (Sunday afternoon) the UK is getting about 1/3rd of the nations power from wind turbines, more than any other single source: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live https://winderful.uk/ https://winderful.uk/
    - gizajob 4y ago
      Great stats, and great username. Hope you're near to the great telescope. Spent some joyous school trips there as a child.
- mike_hearn 4y ago
  Brexit isn't mentioned anywhere and the physics of it would be the same regardless of the EU existing or not. The reason to go direct to Morocco are that transmission through regular AC grids would lose virtually all the power before it gets anywhere near the UK. 10GW is a hell of a load and you can't just pretend a grid is a bathtub at these scales. But as you brought it up, even if there was a semi-conductor breakthrough tomorrow the political reasons to go direct would still be there. The EU wants the UK to be subservient to the Commission for ideological, political and economic reasons. The UK doesn't want to be back in that situation. The EU would absolutely make energy transit dependent on all manner of entirely irrelevant topics - fish is the current one but there would be others - and thus making electricity supplies dependent on the EU would end up being equivalent to being sucked back in, not as a member state but as a vassal state.
  - nbevans 4y ago
    Exactly. The last couple years has really let the mask slip on what the EU stands for and they've made it expressly clear how they intend to treat the UK going forward - despite the UK's best efforts to forge a genuinely strong relationship, this has been rebuffed at every opportunity. We are "fair game" to them now. So it makes complete sense to design future energy projects with sovereignty in mind.
    - KarlKemp 4y ago
      The EU does not think of the UK in that way. In fact it tends not to think of the UK at all, these days. As to being "fair game": that's true, in the sense that the EU will place the interests of member states over those of the UK. That dynamic must be among the least surprising developments of history, considering it is both obvious and formed the core of every serious prediction in the run-up to Brexit. There was plenty of swagger back in those days with fantasies of renewed UK superpower domineering the EU and extracting every concession it can think of. "Fantasy" because that's just not how it works if the other party makes up 60 % of your foreign trade, but you make up less than 10 % of theirs. So here we are now, with the UK coming up with these harebrained schemes that feel like some party organized with the specific purpose of not inviting your ex.
- petr_tik 4y ago
  > This sounds like brexiteer project. Given that the UK has left the EU, couldn't you call every trade deal or cultural exchange with a non-EU country a Brexit project? Even if it is, what is wrong with that? The people of Britain voted for Brexit and now need their elected officials to deliver, which motivates projects like these Edit: to clarify, i live in London and i didn't vote for Brexit. Regardless of the outcome, I consider it a national security issue and a productivity boost to have cheap energy collected from a diverse set of sources from solar plants abroad to domestic nuclear energy plants and off-shore wind turbines. If you live in Britain, would you really prefer Britain stop investing in projects like these, just because there was an election result you disagreed with?
  - blibble 4y ago
    > The people of Britain voted for Brexit and now need their elected officials to deliver the desired position of many is that the UK should crawl off into a corner and almost die, then will have to come crawling back to the EU to show that is indispensable projects like this work counter to that narrative
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    I'm just curious if a direct interconnect from Morocco->UK is the best solution from an engineering perspective, or if a Morocco->EU->UK interconnect would work better without the politics.
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      The latter would work better in terms of energy losses, but would require major overcapacity in the interconnectors between Spain and France (from Spain's and France's point of view). They'd drag their feet. We are where we are. Politics is a thing. If it pushes along the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, I don't care if it's "inefficient". Show me a major company that hasn't wasted money or done something in a way that is technically less than optimal.
  - oliwarner 4y ago
    Brexiteer, not Brexit. The latter being a dictionary definition of a bad idea, the first being the buffoons who lied about it, flying kites, tossing dead cats around to manipulate the conversation and ultimately shove it through, half cocked. This looks like yet another kite to be sold with: "Look what we can do now we're out of that wretched EU". Possibly a nice idea, aggressively detached from reality.
- dankboys 4y ago
  Ah yes, famously brexit didn't happen
popol12 4y ago
Sounds inefficient How big are the loss on such a high distance connection ?
- FpUser 4y ago
  If you do not really know the loss why does it "sound inefficient"? I am pretty sure they've done all the due diligence and if the project is a go then the losses are acceptable. I am more interested (again if the project is a go) what happens if / when some "friendly" people will mess with the cable.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
    Worth noting the project isn't even funded yet. https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea?s=r https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea?s=...
- mabbo 4y ago
  High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) is much more efficient at transmission over long distances than AC. It can throw off your intuition on these things. In China, there is a 3300 km line like this moving 12GW of power. This is a little bit longer, but not by much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
  - pxeger1 4y ago
    The reason AC is often believed to be more efficient is because higher voltages of either type are more efficient (less loss to electrical resistance), and it's much easier to step voltage up and down using AC.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Transformers are very efficient and easy to make for sure, and can ‘easily’ step up to millions of volts. Longer distance runs of AC can have a lot of losses though due to inductance, especially when they’re close to large conductive masses (like seawater or earth). DC requires expensive conversion equipment to get back to AC for the grid. AC is cheap for short runs. Usually AC vs DC high voltage starts to be equally cost effective around the several hundred miles of buried lines, and a clear winner around the 1000 mile range (efficiency and capex wise). HVDC can also allow grid balancing when disparate grids are connected (different frequencies and voltages for instance).
Y-bar 4y ago
Why does the cables trace the Iberian and French coastlines rather than a taking a more direct route?
- hetspookjee 4y ago
  I'm guessing it has to do with the EU, but it seems far more sensical if it went straight through and allow others to give/receive as well.
  - nerdawson 4y ago
    That would make it dependent on the countries it hopped through and subject to their political whims. The Gibraltar issue crops up every now and then for instance so having control over an electrical connection gives the Spanish government more leverage. Same with France and the dispute over fishing waters. Only recently France were threatening to cut off power to Jersey.
    - seszett 4y ago
      > Only recently France were threatening to cut off power to Jersey. Just want to add that it was a bit different than that. More exactly, an English newspaper asked a French official if cutting electricity off was a possibility and that official answered nothing more than "the treaty that was agreed upon does include this as a possibility". It was never an actual threat or in any plan at the time.
      - mike_hearn 4y ago
        That's not quite correct: [Europe Minister] Clément Beaune, who is a close ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said action would be decided on within days and discussions were already in motion .... [Beaune] added, "We defend our interests. We do it nicely, and diplomatically, but when that doesn’t work we take measures. The Channel Islands, the UK, are dependent on us for their energy supply. They think they can live on their own and badmouth Europe as well. And because it doesn’t work, they indulge in one-upmanship, and in an aggressive way" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/05/france-uk-jersey-eu-energy-supply-fishing-row-channel https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/05/france-uk-jers... "Reducing supplies (of electricity to Jersey) is possible, but cutting the power to every Jersey resident this winter is something that will not happen and something that I do not want," Europe Minister Clement Beaune told BFM-TV in an interview. https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/france-could-reduce-jersey-electricity-supplies-in-uk-fishing-row https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/france-could-reduce-... France could cut electricity supply to UK Channel Island Jersey unless a post-Brexit fishing agreement is respected, Maritime Minister Annick Girardin told the French parliament May 4. https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/050521-france-threatens-to-cut-electricity-supply-to-jersey-in-fishing-row https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight... French fishermen are struggling to obtain fishing licenses allowing them to keep working in U.K. waters, including in Jersey. They must show they have been fishing in these waters from 2012 to 2016 using GPS data, which some don't have. "As you know, the [Brexit] agreement contains retaliatory measures ... So as far as Jersey is concerned, I would remind you, for example, of the transport of electricity via submarine cables. So we have the means, and even though I'm sorry it has come to this, we will do so if we have to," she told the French parliament. https://www.politico.eu/article/fishing-brexit-eu-uk-jersey/ https://www.politico.eu/article/fishing-brexit-eu-uk-jersey/
35mm 4y ago
Why not the south of Spain? Just as much sun and more politically stable.
- blibble 4y ago
  increasing energy dependence on the EU seems unwise given its attempts to use it for political leverage: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/05/france-uk-jersey-eu-energy-supply-fishing-row-channel https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/05/france-uk-jers... the government agrees: https://news.sky.com/story/jersey-fishing-dispute-frances-sinister-threat-to-cut-power-to-island-means-channel-cable-project-should-be-scrapped-mp-says-12299117 https://news.sky.com/story/jersey-fishing-dispute-frances-si... (and has denied construction of new interconnectors to France since) Spain would definitely use an interconnector as leverage re: Gibraltar
  - bdauvergne 4y ago
    UK which of course never used unrelated subject like fishing rights or immigration as a political leverage. \s Every country in the EU submit to the majority law, that's the idea of an union, even France or Germany do not have everything to their liking every time.
    - Veen 4y ago
      Which is precisely why the UK is no longer in the EU. It no longer has to follow "majority law" and can do what is in its own best interests.
      - sofixa 4y ago
        > and can do what is in its own best interests. If it did that, it wouldn't have gotten out of the common market. The UK is way past sensible choices in its best interests, and is firmly in the "cut its nose to spite the EU".
        blibble 4y ago
qwedf 4y ago
The latest Doomberg does a great job in pointing out the practical flaws. https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea "The Xlinks project is a pretty good concept, and yet…it needs access to materials already claimed by many others at prices increasing by the day, it needs to build an entire HVDC industry in Britain from the ground up, and it needs money, lots of it."
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
  How much?
- redcalx 4y ago
  For the battery storage, perhaps they will ultimately choose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery. The cable manufacture seems like more a 'when' rather than an 'if' problem. The scheduled first phase of construction is 2025-2027, which we can reasonably expect to be delayed by 2-3 years if they are trying to build new manufacturing capability. Overall this still looks to be in the realms of possible/viable IMO.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  > it needs to build an entire HVDC industry in Britain from the ground up Britain already has several HVDC undersea interconnectors with Europe. These are maintained and there is design and construction capability. If not in Britain, then nearby. 1. https://www.northsealink.com/ https://www.northsealink.com/ 2. https://www.ifa1interconnector.com/ https://www.ifa1interconnector.com/ 3. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy-and-regulatory-programmes/interconnectors https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy... (Scroll down for electricity.)
giorgioz 4y ago
Given how many from the comments and me have come to understand this is a BREXIT move I just want to say: This is NOT technology is GEOPOLITICS, and it sucks!
- cptcobalt 4y ago
  It can be both at the same time. This is bringing more renewables and energy storage online. Any way you slice it, this is a global need.
  - giorgioz 4y ago
    The UK is a vast country, the idea that wind and sun are lacking in all of it seems a corner scenario. Plus it could always pay/exchange electricity with the rest of Europe. This is just the brexiters bending backward to not be part of Europe. It feels like a socially incapable person leaving a party where (s)he was wanted and esteemed because (s)he has deep trust issues. Or more likely, because (s)he can't sit at an Arthurian round table of equals. Wishing to be the top dog or nothing.
rationalfaith 4y ago
trebligdivad 4y ago
I wonder what it would take to cut say a year off the time line; I realize 5 years isn't huge for a big project, but being pretty desperate for energy I wonder what it would take.
cptcobalt 4y ago
This is rad. > Alongside the consistent output from its solar panels and wind turbines, an onsite 20GWh/5GW battery facility provide sufficient storage to reliably deliver each and every day Four hour battery storage for renewables. The way of the future. > This “first of a kind” project will generate 10.5GW of zero carbon electricity from the sun and wind to deliver 3.6GW of reliable energy for an average of 20+ hours a day. The classic error, mixing up units: "3.6GW of reliable energy". The writer certainly means power here. [1] I work in energy, and have had teams like legal (and tools like Grammarly) think we're just mixing up words for fun. Regardless, definitely seems like a very sufficient install to supply real power and charge the battery for load shifting at utility scale. [1]: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Energy_vs_power https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Energy_vs_power
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Isn’t 4 hours of battery storage much too low? How is that considered “reliable”? What am I missing?
  - cptcobalt 4y ago
    Indeed, if we're assuming that they'll charge during the day to discharge at full power at night, it won't cover all of overnight use, but with the current composition of grids typically it's what you need to cover after sundown until most go to sleep (and energy use reduces). A project like this doesn't need to reduce base load, but there surely needs to be renewable (or nuclear) energy projects to replace base load. (This is an over simplification, but base load supply is built to be more steady state, less real-time reactive to the needs of grid.) Also, the "time" of the battery is just a function of storage size and inverter sizing at peak discharge. It's often selected based on how the operator expects it to be used. (For example, Tesla sells megapacks in 2hr/4hr variants [1], and I think a lot of other grid-scale storage works this way. A 2hr megapack replaces some battery bays with more inverters.) While the battery is 4 hour capable, the operator could really intend for this to provide a constant overnight supply, and it could certainly provide that. [1]: https://www.tesla.com/megapack/design https://www.tesla.com/megapack/design
Yuioup 4y ago
Yeah no, this is Brexit twaddle.
jodrellblank 4y ago
UK is currently generating 30GW from all sources[1], so 10GW is a third of the national power requirement. Germany has just had a hard lesson in having significant energy dependency on Russia. Morocco is UK's 61st largest trading partner[2]. Morocco isn't Russia, but handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country in a less stable world region with limited history of partnership (European colonisation until the 1950s) seems daft. I mean, compared to building nuclear power inside UK territory and wind farms off shore of the UK. For national security reasons if not environmental ones. [1] https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live [2] https://abmec.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021-02-Morocco-DIT-Factsheet.pdf https://abmec.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021-02-Moro...
- nyokodo 4y ago
  > Morocco isn't Russia, but handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country… seems daft. Perhaps, but making yourself a vital part of keeping the lights on for a country with a brutal colonial history within living memory, a much more capable military, and a military base 36 miles from Tangier… seems even more daft.
- Grimburger 4y ago
  > handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country As horrible as it sounds, Morocco isn't a nuclear power and would be crushed in an afternoon by UK armed forces while western media across the planet creates a hundred different justifications and the world's diplomats send their congratulations for neutralising the energy terrorists because they couldn't care less what happens to them. This is a completely different situation wrt to Germany <-> Russia
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    That is not true. The UK doesn't have the force projection capability to do that to Morocco, which is a US ally. The UK would get hammered in an attempt to terrorise Morocco. The only remotely conceivable way that the UK would have of projecting significant power onto the Moroccan mainland is by trying to foment a civil war. Otherwise they would not get anything out of it. If the US even allowed the UK to do such a foolish thing, it would be disastrous long-term for the whole of Europe. Completely alienating and breaking off with North Africa means that Europe is now completely surrounded with unfriendly countries.
Havoc 4y ago
Why not pump the energy into the EU grid at bottom and pull it out in the north?
- samwillis 4y ago
  I assume control, with the investment coming from the UK they want to have control of it. If it has to go via the EU they would loose that control and could potentially lose access.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  I don't think there is such a grid with this spare capacity.
- fulafel 4y ago
  If you sell in place a and buy back in place b, you might sometimes get less of it back for the same money.
  - Havoc 4y ago
    Aka wheeling charges. Yes, though likely significantly less than the cost of building a cable around the EU
kkfx 4y ago
Oh, nice, so in case of wars a cheap submarine can just put a small and cheap charge deep in the sea and boom, 10GWp power are out of the UK national grid. How nice. My fellow humans remember a thing: a national grid is not national because of politics but because a such critical part of a country infra it's better to be self-sufficient under nation borders and hopefully self-sufficient inside those borders even in case of major attacks (translated, not few big power plants, but many small and a distribution network designed to survive significant damages). We, westerners have had the best industry and technology in the world, now for some neoliberals economic devastating ideas we pull it apart outsourcing anything because that's pay back, in thin air, well, and now we see a new world power, China, arise and we see our power wane. How much damage we want to take before annihilating with lifelong court rulings against those economy-driven society? We really want to wait till being completely lost?
- jacquesm 4y ago
  This goes for all infrastructure. Destroying it is much easier than making it. But that 'cheap' submarine won't be as cheap as you think it is and it still has to do it undetected and it has to achieve some kind of objective. It also immediately gets two countries pissed off at you, one of which is in NATO and may well see an attack on its infrastructure as an overt act of war. So you better think this over long and hard before sending your cheap submarine down there. Personally I'd be much more concerned about the kind of damage marine life, fishing and cargo ships would do to that cable and how to armor against that. Probably by the time you've taken all that into account you have also defended against that sub. And finally, the same thing of course goes for all of those other undersea cables, communications ones for instance.
  - kkfx 4y ago
    Under the sea who know for sure who made what? Even an ally can do such sabotage just to generate a military response against a common enemy he want to aggress but can't do without allies and those allies are not much interested if not forced or even a simple self-inflicted damage to justify a war the public do not accept but some in the government/élites want... Did you remember just Britannia to cite something from history or the outcome of the attacks of Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan and Nice have generated? Such attacks can even disable half a country grid just due to the big drop in frequency of the whole grid, spark enormous outrage and can also be both really damaging and really quick to fix. Life it's complicated, where no one can easy see anything can happen, design things to avoid potential attack surface is a good way to protect themselves. We do not normally have strokes, but we put defibrillators everywhere for a reason, we do not have much car accidents but we design cars to make us survive important ones etc. A critical infra like an energy grid... Oh, sure we in the west are equally dependent on foreign supply chains for oil, uranium etc but we stockpile them a bit, months for oil, an year or two for uranium, it's not the same of electricity in a grid... Just see how many issues are there due to some supply chain issues in south China or the "Ever given" crisis in Suez. We are already hyper-vulnerable planning even bigger vulnerabilities for the future it does not sound that smart to me.
samwillis 4y ago
This is really interesting in the context of what is happening locally to my home, we are about two miles from what is planned to be the UK largest domestic solar farm [0,1]. It will output 350MW, so the one proposed in Morocco will be about 28 times the size. There has been a significant push back against the project locally and so I suspect it won’t be built to the scale proposed. The main criticism is that the land is particularly fertile. 0: https://www.mallardpasssolar.co.uk/ https://www.mallardpasssolar.co.uk/ 1: https://www.stamfordmercury.co.uk/news/amp/clock-is-ticking-on-solar-farm-views-9230167/ https://www.stamfordmercury.co.uk/news/amp/clock-is-ticking-...
- redcalx 4y ago
  Yes, I don't see the logic of using fertile agricultural land for solar PV. It seems like short term thinking and a planning failure. I've heard at lest one similar story regarding reforesting, i.e., a scheme that was planning to use fertile land in Wales that was ultimately canned due to local objections/resistance.
credit_guy 4y ago
I find liquefied Hydrogen to make more sense. In case of conflict (like now), undersea cables can be sabotaged with plausible deniability. The Royal Navy can protect a tanker en route from Morocco to UK, or a convoy of such tankers, there were two times in the not so distant history when it had to do just that. But how do you protect a continuous line of a few thousand km? Separately, if at some random point in the future the relations between the UK and Morocco go south, it’s much easier to change suppliers if you use tankers. The EU is investing massively in Hydrogen, so the Worldwide Hydrogen market will be quite mature in 10 to 20 years. Even from Morocco’s point of view, the same calculus applies. If the UK sanctions Morocco, and refuses to take delivery of electricity, how do you find an alternate buyer if the transmission line is in place? With Hydrogen tankers, you simply start selling to China or someone else, or you put the Hydrogen in some medium-long term storage. This gives you more leeway to negotiate whatever diplomatic situation you found yourself in.
- kibwen 4y ago
  Rather, the thing that makes the most sense is for countries to rely exclusively on local power generation, and completely eliminate their reliance on other countries for energy. There is no infrastructure more fundamental than energy, because energy underlies all other infrastructure. Swapping out oil or coal or gas for liquefied hydrogen (or enormous intercontinental power lines) just trades one poor situation for another. Don't rely on any energy that you couldn't immediately switch over to providing yourself, even if it means paying an eye-watering premium.
- kaibee 4y ago
  > But how do you protect a continuous line of a few thousand km? Cameras/sensors, and fast response time. You could put a sensor package every couple km. Given the amount of power this installation delivers, it wouldn't exactly break the bank.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    The bottom of the ocean is a very dark place. Sun light does not penetrate beyond a dpeth of 200 meters. Your cameras need to have lights, and very powerful ones, but they won’t reach beyond, say 500 meters. So you will need many thousands of cameras and probably hundreds of autonomous submersible drones to be on station at all times. This does not come cheap. Leaving aside the fact that it may render the project uneconomical, after a few years of nothing happening, there will be lots of cost cutting pressures. Even without cost cutting, at depth things fail. You will have zones with no suveillance coverage. The problem with such a system is that 99% coverage is about as good as 0% coverage.
gnfargbl 4y ago
This is a proposal for a 3.6GW interconnector (as 2 x 1.8GW HVDC cables). The headline here is incorrectly editorialized.
leke 4y ago
Will countries ever learn to make their own energy! Has this Russia situation taught us nothing!?
- nicbou 4y ago
  The EU situation has taught us many things about collaboration.
redeyedtreefrog 4y ago
So if it goes ahead it will generate 10.5GW, but deliver 3.6GW for "20+ hours a day". I guess the 10.5GW figure is peak generation during the day with lots of wind + sun, then by using batteries it will be able to consistently deliver approx 1/3 of that, or 8% of current UK demand (from the article). Makes sense, but the headline used by the submission is a bit misleading. At the same time, the electrification of heating + transport is predicted to approximately double UK electricity demand by 2050. So even if this goes ahead and works as intended, it will end up providing something like 4% of the UK's needs. A whole bunch of comments here comparing this idea negatively to wind, nuclear or tankers filled with hydrogen (?!). Even if it goes ahead, there need to be like a dozen other new projects of similar scale just to meet demand on these small islands. If you also want to provide carbon free electricity to the other 10 billion people likely to be living on this planet by that 2050, then you need to multiply that dozen projects by a factor of at least 100.
BurningFrog 4y ago
> The Morocco-UK Power Project will be powered by a wind and solar farm, approximately 1,500km² in size I'm intrigued by how 1,500km² of partial shade will transform the Sahara ecosystem. I hope it will make more life possible in the shade.
- 7952 4y ago
  Large wind turbines are spread out so will probably occupy much more land but not cast shadow.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    Yeah, I was thinking of the solar cells.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  The Sahara is 9.2 million km². So probably not much change for the ecosystem.
fulafel 4y ago
Editorialized title is wrong, the cable is not 10GW according to the page.
danw1979 4y ago
Wowsers, 200km2 of _tracking_ solar. This is an ambitious project.
aaron695 4y ago
hokkos 4y ago
It seems NordStream 2 teaches us nothing.

110 points by redcalx 4y ago

This sounds like brexiteer project. Doubt this will actually happen. 3800 km of undersea HVDC cable just to circumvent the EU. 3800 km is the distance from St.Petersburg to Marocco.

mardifoufs 4y ago
I mean it probably would've been very hard to route it through Europe too. Morocco already has powerlines with Spain, but I'm not sure if it would make sense to transport that much energy through the existing grid? Especially since very high voltage powerlines are inherently more efficient, so a direct link might make sense. I'm not familiar with how the EU grid is laid out though, and the little knowledge I have is pretty specific the Québec Grid.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  The European grids, and some neighbouring countries, are shown here: https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/ https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/
- KarlKemp 4y ago
  It’d be stupid to run a cable straight through the EU, as well, yes. You want to be part of a large and diverse grid. Then, you add or reinforce long-distance connections based on observed patterns. So the UK should get over itself, connect to larger grid that’s already operating on three sides. The same is probably true for Morocco, and at some point these photovoltaic-in-the-desert ideas will become economical, although I’m not entirely sure if we are there yet (the desert is less ideal for solar cells than one thinks, because heat isn’t linear proportional to irradiation).
  - sgt101 4y ago
    It is connected, via France. There was a fire recently, but it's a strategic connection. https://ifa1interconnector.com/ https://ifa1interconnector.com/ Also the UK is connected to Norway https://northsealink.com/ https://northsealink.com/ And Ireland also https://www.eirgridgroup.com/customer-and-industry/interconnection/ https://www.eirgridgroup.com/customer-and-industry/interconn...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > It’d be stupid to run a cable straight through the EU, as well, yes. Politically, maybe. Technically and financially, not at all. There’s 3GW of interconnection between france and the UK with a 4th under construction, and france is a broker / hub between germany, italy, spain, and the UK (as well as its own production).
    - justincormack 4y ago
      France won’t let solar from Spain into their grid as it undermines their nuclear financing. So from Morocco is off the table. A Spain UK connection was planned and seems sensible.
      - masklinn 4y ago
        > France won’t let solar from Spain into their grid as it undermines their nuclear financing. Complete nonsense. France buys renewable electricity from neighbours all the time, both for itself and to sell to other neighbours. France also sells its own electricity. A new interconnect between france and Spain is under construction (the biscay bay line), in order to bring the exchange capacity between them up to 5GW.
giorgioz 4y ago
Yes it does, I'm not sure why they can't just put wind turbines in the UK. I'm sure there is plenty of wind there too. Also it would seem the south of France or Portugal would be much closer for the solar part.
- varajelle 4y ago
  > I'm not sure why they can't just put wind turbines in the UK. From the article: > When domestic renewable energy generation in the United Kingdom drops due to low winds and short periods of sun, the project will harvest the benefits of long hours of sun in Morocco
- Kognito 4y ago
  For context the UK is already massively invested in wind turbines, with a lot more investment going into off-shore farms. On a good windy day, current capacity might satisfy ~40% of grid demand and this will only increase. However, the wind doesn't always blow and a cache of coal-fired power stations are kept on hand to quickly be able to plug the gap. If this is economical enough - I'd be all for it rather than paying energy companies to keep coal-fired power stations ready to belch out smog at a moments notice.
  - justincormack 4y ago
    Gas fired not coal. Its faster to spin up.
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  Right now (Sunday afternoon) the UK is getting about 1/3rd of the nations power from wind turbines, more than any other single source: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live https://winderful.uk/ https://winderful.uk/
  - gizajob 4y ago
    Great stats, and great username. Hope you're near to the great telescope. Spent some joyous school trips there as a child.
mike_hearn 4y ago
Brexit isn't mentioned anywhere and the physics of it would be the same regardless of the EU existing or not. The reason to go direct to Morocco are that transmission through regular AC grids would lose virtually all the power before it gets anywhere near the UK. 10GW is a hell of a load and you can't just pretend a grid is a bathtub at these scales. But as you brought it up, even if there was a semi-conductor breakthrough tomorrow the political reasons to go direct would still be there. The EU wants the UK to be subservient to the Commission for ideological, political and economic reasons. The UK doesn't want to be back in that situation. The EU would absolutely make energy transit dependent on all manner of entirely irrelevant topics - fish is the current one but there would be others - and thus making electricity supplies dependent on the EU would end up being equivalent to being sucked back in, not as a member state but as a vassal state.
- nbevans 4y ago
  Exactly. The last couple years has really let the mask slip on what the EU stands for and they've made it expressly clear how they intend to treat the UK going forward - despite the UK's best efforts to forge a genuinely strong relationship, this has been rebuffed at every opportunity. We are "fair game" to them now. So it makes complete sense to design future energy projects with sovereignty in mind.
  - KarlKemp 4y ago
    The EU does not think of the UK in that way. In fact it tends not to think of the UK at all, these days. As to being "fair game": that's true, in the sense that the EU will place the interests of member states over those of the UK. That dynamic must be among the least surprising developments of history, considering it is both obvious and formed the core of every serious prediction in the run-up to Brexit. There was plenty of swagger back in those days with fantasies of renewed UK superpower domineering the EU and extracting every concession it can think of. "Fantasy" because that's just not how it works if the other party makes up 60 % of your foreign trade, but you make up less than 10 % of theirs. So here we are now, with the UK coming up with these harebrained schemes that feel like some party organized with the specific purpose of not inviting your ex.
petr_tik 4y ago
> This sounds like brexiteer project. Given that the UK has left the EU, couldn't you call every trade deal or cultural exchange with a non-EU country a Brexit project? Even if it is, what is wrong with that? The people of Britain voted for Brexit and now need their elected officials to deliver, which motivates projects like these Edit: to clarify, i live in London and i didn't vote for Brexit. Regardless of the outcome, I consider it a national security issue and a productivity boost to have cheap energy collected from a diverse set of sources from solar plants abroad to domestic nuclear energy plants and off-shore wind turbines. If you live in Britain, would you really prefer Britain stop investing in projects like these, just because there was an election result you disagreed with?
- blibble 4y ago
  > The people of Britain voted for Brexit and now need their elected officials to deliver the desired position of many is that the UK should crawl off into a corner and almost die, then will have to come crawling back to the EU to show that is indispensable projects like this work counter to that narrative
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  I'm just curious if a direct interconnect from Morocco->UK is the best solution from an engineering perspective, or if a Morocco->EU->UK interconnect would work better without the politics.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    The latter would work better in terms of energy losses, but would require major overcapacity in the interconnectors between Spain and France (from Spain's and France's point of view). They'd drag their feet. We are where we are. Politics is a thing. If it pushes along the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, I don't care if it's "inefficient". Show me a major company that hasn't wasted money or done something in a way that is technically less than optimal.
- oliwarner 4y ago
  Brexiteer, not Brexit. The latter being a dictionary definition of a bad idea, the first being the buffoons who lied about it, flying kites, tossing dead cats around to manipulate the conversation and ultimately shove it through, half cocked. This looks like yet another kite to be sold with: "Look what we can do now we're out of that wretched EU". Possibly a nice idea, aggressively detached from reality.
dankboys 4y ago
Ah yes, famously brexit didn't happen

popol12 4y ago

Sounds inefficient How big are the loss on such a high distance connection ?

FpUser 4y ago
If you do not really know the loss why does it "sound inefficient"? I am pretty sure they've done all the due diligence and if the project is a go then the losses are acceptable. I am more interested (again if the project is a go) what happens if / when some "friendly" people will mess with the cable.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  Worth noting the project isn't even funded yet. https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea?s=r https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea?s=...
mabbo 4y ago
High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) is much more efficient at transmission over long distances than AC. It can throw off your intuition on these things. In China, there is a 3300 km line like this moving 12GW of power. This is a little bit longer, but not by much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
- pxeger1 4y ago
  The reason AC is often believed to be more efficient is because higher voltages of either type are more efficient (less loss to electrical resistance), and it's much easier to step voltage up and down using AC.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Transformers are very efficient and easy to make for sure, and can ‘easily’ step up to millions of volts. Longer distance runs of AC can have a lot of losses though due to inductance, especially when they’re close to large conductive masses (like seawater or earth). DC requires expensive conversion equipment to get back to AC for the grid. AC is cheap for short runs. Usually AC vs DC high voltage starts to be equally cost effective around the several hundred miles of buried lines, and a clear winner around the 1000 mile range (efficiency and capex wise). HVDC can also allow grid balancing when disparate grids are connected (different frequencies and voltages for instance).

Y-bar 4y ago

Why does the cables trace the Iberian and French coastlines rather than a taking a more direct route?

hetspookjee 4y ago
I'm guessing it has to do with the EU, but it seems far more sensical if it went straight through and allow others to give/receive as well.
- nerdawson 4y ago
  That would make it dependent on the countries it hopped through and subject to their political whims. The Gibraltar issue crops up every now and then for instance so having control over an electrical connection gives the Spanish government more leverage. Same with France and the dispute over fishing waters. Only recently France were threatening to cut off power to Jersey.
  - seszett 4y ago
    > Only recently France were threatening to cut off power to Jersey. Just want to add that it was a bit different than that. More exactly, an English newspaper asked a French official if cutting electricity off was a possibility and that official answered nothing more than "the treaty that was agreed upon does include this as a possibility". It was never an actual threat or in any plan at the time.
    - mike_hearn 4y ago
      That's not quite correct: [Europe Minister] Clément Beaune, who is a close ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said action would be decided on within days and discussions were already in motion .... [Beaune] added, "We defend our interests. We do it nicely, and diplomatically, but when that doesn’t work we take measures. The Channel Islands, the UK, are dependent on us for their energy supply. They think they can live on their own and badmouth Europe as well. And because it doesn’t work, they indulge in one-upmanship, and in an aggressive way" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/05/france-uk-jersey-eu-energy-supply-fishing-row-channel https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/05/france-uk-jers... "Reducing supplies (of electricity to Jersey) is possible, but cutting the power to every Jersey resident this winter is something that will not happen and something that I do not want," Europe Minister Clement Beaune told BFM-TV in an interview. https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/france-could-reduce-jersey-electricity-supplies-in-uk-fishing-row https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/france-could-reduce-... France could cut electricity supply to UK Channel Island Jersey unless a post-Brexit fishing agreement is respected, Maritime Minister Annick Girardin told the French parliament May 4. https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/050521-france-threatens-to-cut-electricity-supply-to-jersey-in-fishing-row https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight... French fishermen are struggling to obtain fishing licenses allowing them to keep working in U.K. waters, including in Jersey. They must show they have been fishing in these waters from 2012 to 2016 using GPS data, which some don't have. "As you know, the [Brexit] agreement contains retaliatory measures ... So as far as Jersey is concerned, I would remind you, for example, of the transport of electricity via submarine cables. So we have the means, and even though I'm sorry it has come to this, we will do so if we have to," she told the French parliament. https://www.politico.eu/article/fishing-brexit-eu-uk-jersey/ https://www.politico.eu/article/fishing-brexit-eu-uk-jersey/

35mm 4y ago

Why not the south of Spain? Just as much sun and more politically stable.

blibble 4y ago
increasing energy dependence on the EU seems unwise given its attempts to use it for political leverage: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/05/france-uk-jersey-eu-energy-supply-fishing-row-channel https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/05/france-uk-jers... the government agrees: https://news.sky.com/story/jersey-fishing-dispute-frances-sinister-threat-to-cut-power-to-island-means-channel-cable-project-should-be-scrapped-mp-says-12299117 https://news.sky.com/story/jersey-fishing-dispute-frances-si... (and has denied construction of new interconnectors to France since) Spain would definitely use an interconnector as leverage re: Gibraltar
- bdauvergne 4y ago
  UK which of course never used unrelated subject like fishing rights or immigration as a political leverage. \s Every country in the EU submit to the majority law, that's the idea of an union, even France or Germany do not have everything to their liking every time.
  - Veen 4y ago
    Which is precisely why the UK is no longer in the EU. It no longer has to follow "majority law" and can do what is in its own best interests.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > and can do what is in its own best interests. If it did that, it wouldn't have gotten out of the common market. The UK is way past sensible choices in its best interests, and is firmly in the "cut its nose to spite the EU".
      - blibble 4y ago

qwedf 4y ago

The latest Doomberg does a great job in pointing out the practical flaws. https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea "The Xlinks project is a pretty good concept, and yet…it needs access to materials already claimed by many others at prices increasing by the day, it needs to build an entire HVDC industry in Britain from the ground up, and it needs money, lots of it."

rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
How much?
redcalx 4y ago
For the battery storage, perhaps they will ultimately choose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery. The cable manufacture seems like more a 'when' rather than an 'if' problem. The scheduled first phase of construction is 2025-2027, which we can reasonably expect to be delayed by 2-3 years if they are trying to build new manufacturing capability. Overall this still looks to be in the realms of possible/viable IMO.
tuatoru 4y ago
> it needs to build an entire HVDC industry in Britain from the ground up Britain already has several HVDC undersea interconnectors with Europe. These are maintained and there is design and construction capability. If not in Britain, then nearby. 1. https://www.northsealink.com/ https://www.northsealink.com/ 2. https://www.ifa1interconnector.com/ https://www.ifa1interconnector.com/ 3. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy-and-regulatory-programmes/interconnectors https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy... (Scroll down for electricity.)

giorgioz 4y ago

Given how many from the comments and me have come to understand this is a BREXIT move I just want to say: This is NOT technology is GEOPOLITICS, and it sucks!

cptcobalt 4y ago
It can be both at the same time. This is bringing more renewables and energy storage online. Any way you slice it, this is a global need.
- giorgioz 4y ago
  The UK is a vast country, the idea that wind and sun are lacking in all of it seems a corner scenario. Plus it could always pay/exchange electricity with the rest of Europe. This is just the brexiters bending backward to not be part of Europe. It feels like a socially incapable person leaving a party where (s)he was wanted and esteemed because (s)he has deep trust issues. Or more likely, because (s)he can't sit at an Arthurian round table of equals. Wishing to be the top dog or nothing.

rationalfaith 4y ago

trebligdivad 4y ago

I wonder what it would take to cut say a year off the time line; I realize 5 years isn't huge for a big project, but being pretty desperate for energy I wonder what it would take.

cptcobalt 4y ago

This is rad. > Alongside the consistent output from its solar panels and wind turbines, an onsite 20GWh/5GW battery facility provide sufficient storage to reliably deliver each and every day Four hour battery storage for renewables. The way of the future. > This “first of a kind” project will generate 10.5GW of zero carbon electricity from the sun and wind to deliver 3.6GW of reliable energy for an average of 20+ hours a day. The classic error, mixing up units: "3.6GW of reliable energy". The writer certainly means power here. [1] I work in energy, and have had teams like legal (and tools like Grammarly) think we're just mixing up words for fun. Regardless, definitely seems like a very sufficient install to supply real power and charge the battery for load shifting at utility scale. [1]: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Energy_vs_power https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Energy_vs_power

throwaway894345 4y ago
Isn’t 4 hours of battery storage much too low? How is that considered “reliable”? What am I missing?
- cptcobalt 4y ago
  Indeed, if we're assuming that they'll charge during the day to discharge at full power at night, it won't cover all of overnight use, but with the current composition of grids typically it's what you need to cover after sundown until most go to sleep (and energy use reduces). A project like this doesn't need to reduce base load, but there surely needs to be renewable (or nuclear) energy projects to replace base load. (This is an over simplification, but base load supply is built to be more steady state, less real-time reactive to the needs of grid.) Also, the "time" of the battery is just a function of storage size and inverter sizing at peak discharge. It's often selected based on how the operator expects it to be used. (For example, Tesla sells megapacks in 2hr/4hr variants [1], and I think a lot of other grid-scale storage works this way. A 2hr megapack replaces some battery bays with more inverters.) While the battery is 4 hour capable, the operator could really intend for this to provide a constant overnight supply, and it could certainly provide that. [1]: https://www.tesla.com/megapack/design https://www.tesla.com/megapack/design

Yuioup 4y ago

Yeah no, this is Brexit twaddle.

jodrellblank 4y ago

UK is currently generating 30GW from all sources[1], so 10GW is a third of the national power requirement. Germany has just had a hard lesson in having significant energy dependency on Russia. Morocco is UK's 61st largest trading partner[2]. Morocco isn't Russia, but handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country in a less stable world region with limited history of partnership (European colonisation until the 1950s) seems daft. I mean, compared to building nuclear power inside UK territory and wind farms off shore of the UK. For national security reasons if not environmental ones. [1] https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live [2] https://abmec.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021-02-Morocco-DIT-Factsheet.pdf https://abmec.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021-02-Moro...

nyokodo 4y ago
> Morocco isn't Russia, but handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country… seems daft. Perhaps, but making yourself a vital part of keeping the lights on for a country with a brutal colonial history within living memory, a much more capable military, and a military base 36 miles from Tangier… seems even more daft.
Grimburger 4y ago
> handing your life support to a distant and culturally different country As horrible as it sounds, Morocco isn't a nuclear power and would be crushed in an afternoon by UK armed forces while western media across the planet creates a hundred different justifications and the world's diplomats send their congratulations for neutralising the energy terrorists because they couldn't care less what happens to them. This is a completely different situation wrt to Germany <-> Russia
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  That is not true. The UK doesn't have the force projection capability to do that to Morocco, which is a US ally. The UK would get hammered in an attempt to terrorise Morocco. The only remotely conceivable way that the UK would have of projecting significant power onto the Moroccan mainland is by trying to foment a civil war. Otherwise they would not get anything out of it. If the US even allowed the UK to do such a foolish thing, it would be disastrous long-term for the whole of Europe. Completely alienating and breaking off with North Africa means that Europe is now completely surrounded with unfriendly countries.

Havoc 4y ago

Why not pump the energy into the EU grid at bottom and pull it out in the north?

samwillis 4y ago
I assume control, with the investment coming from the UK they want to have control of it. If it has to go via the EU they would loose that control and could potentially lose access.
BurningFrog 4y ago
I don't think there is such a grid with this spare capacity.
fulafel 4y ago
If you sell in place a and buy back in place b, you might sometimes get less of it back for the same money.
- Havoc 4y ago
  Aka wheeling charges. Yes, though likely significantly less than the cost of building a cable around the EU

kkfx 4y ago

Oh, nice, so in case of wars a cheap submarine can just put a small and cheap charge deep in the sea and boom, 10GWp power are out of the UK national grid. How nice. My fellow humans remember a thing: a national grid is not national because of politics but because a such critical part of a country infra it's better to be self-sufficient under nation borders and hopefully self-sufficient inside those borders even in case of major attacks (translated, not few big power plants, but many small and a distribution network designed to survive significant damages). We, westerners have had the best industry and technology in the world, now for some neoliberals economic devastating ideas we pull it apart outsourcing anything because that's pay back, in thin air, well, and now we see a new world power, China, arise and we see our power wane. How much damage we want to take before annihilating with lifelong court rulings against those economy-driven society? We really want to wait till being completely lost?

jacquesm 4y ago
This goes for all infrastructure. Destroying it is much easier than making it. But that 'cheap' submarine won't be as cheap as you think it is and it still has to do it undetected and it has to achieve some kind of objective. It also immediately gets two countries pissed off at you, one of which is in NATO and may well see an attack on its infrastructure as an overt act of war. So you better think this over long and hard before sending your cheap submarine down there. Personally I'd be much more concerned about the kind of damage marine life, fishing and cargo ships would do to that cable and how to armor against that. Probably by the time you've taken all that into account you have also defended against that sub. And finally, the same thing of course goes for all of those other undersea cables, communications ones for instance.
- kkfx 4y ago
  Under the sea who know for sure who made what? Even an ally can do such sabotage just to generate a military response against a common enemy he want to aggress but can't do without allies and those allies are not much interested if not forced or even a simple self-inflicted damage to justify a war the public do not accept but some in the government/élites want... Did you remember just Britannia to cite something from history or the outcome of the attacks of Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan and Nice have generated? Such attacks can even disable half a country grid just due to the big drop in frequency of the whole grid, spark enormous outrage and can also be both really damaging and really quick to fix. Life it's complicated, where no one can easy see anything can happen, design things to avoid potential attack surface is a good way to protect themselves. We do not normally have strokes, but we put defibrillators everywhere for a reason, we do not have much car accidents but we design cars to make us survive important ones etc. A critical infra like an energy grid... Oh, sure we in the west are equally dependent on foreign supply chains for oil, uranium etc but we stockpile them a bit, months for oil, an year or two for uranium, it's not the same of electricity in a grid... Just see how many issues are there due to some supply chain issues in south China or the "Ever given" crisis in Suez. We are already hyper-vulnerable planning even bigger vulnerabilities for the future it does not sound that smart to me.

samwillis 4y ago

This is really interesting in the context of what is happening locally to my home, we are about two miles from what is planned to be the UK largest domestic solar farm [0,1]. It will output 350MW, so the one proposed in Morocco will be about 28 times the size. There has been a significant push back against the project locally and so I suspect it won’t be built to the scale proposed. The main criticism is that the land is particularly fertile. 0: https://www.mallardpasssolar.co.uk/ https://www.mallardpasssolar.co.uk/ 1: https://www.stamfordmercury.co.uk/news/amp/clock-is-ticking-on-solar-farm-views-9230167/ https://www.stamfordmercury.co.uk/news/amp/clock-is-ticking-...

redcalx 4y ago
Yes, I don't see the logic of using fertile agricultural land for solar PV. It seems like short term thinking and a planning failure. I've heard at lest one similar story regarding reforesting, i.e., a scheme that was planning to use fertile land in Wales that was ultimately canned due to local objections/resistance.

credit_guy 4y ago

I find liquefied Hydrogen to make more sense. In case of conflict (like now), undersea cables can be sabotaged with plausible deniability. The Royal Navy can protect a tanker en route from Morocco to UK, or a convoy of such tankers, there were two times in the not so distant history when it had to do just that. But how do you protect a continuous line of a few thousand km? Separately, if at some random point in the future the relations between the UK and Morocco go south, it’s much easier to change suppliers if you use tankers. The EU is investing massively in Hydrogen, so the Worldwide Hydrogen market will be quite mature in 10 to 20 years. Even from Morocco’s point of view, the same calculus applies. If the UK sanctions Morocco, and refuses to take delivery of electricity, how do you find an alternate buyer if the transmission line is in place? With Hydrogen tankers, you simply start selling to China or someone else, or you put the Hydrogen in some medium-long term storage. This gives you more leeway to negotiate whatever diplomatic situation you found yourself in.

kibwen 4y ago
Rather, the thing that makes the most sense is for countries to rely exclusively on local power generation, and completely eliminate their reliance on other countries for energy. There is no infrastructure more fundamental than energy, because energy underlies all other infrastructure. Swapping out oil or coal or gas for liquefied hydrogen (or enormous intercontinental power lines) just trades one poor situation for another. Don't rely on any energy that you couldn't immediately switch over to providing yourself, even if it means paying an eye-watering premium.
kaibee 4y ago
> But how do you protect a continuous line of a few thousand km? Cameras/sensors, and fast response time. You could put a sensor package every couple km. Given the amount of power this installation delivers, it wouldn't exactly break the bank.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  The bottom of the ocean is a very dark place. Sun light does not penetrate beyond a dpeth of 200 meters. Your cameras need to have lights, and very powerful ones, but they won’t reach beyond, say 500 meters. So you will need many thousands of cameras and probably hundreds of autonomous submersible drones to be on station at all times. This does not come cheap. Leaving aside the fact that it may render the project uneconomical, after a few years of nothing happening, there will be lots of cost cutting pressures. Even without cost cutting, at depth things fail. You will have zones with no suveillance coverage. The problem with such a system is that 99% coverage is about as good as 0% coverage.

gnfargbl 4y ago

This is a proposal for a 3.6GW interconnector (as 2 x 1.8GW HVDC cables). The headline here is incorrectly editorialized.

leke 4y ago

Will countries ever learn to make their own energy! Has this Russia situation taught us nothing!?

nicbou 4y ago
The EU situation has taught us many things about collaboration.

redeyedtreefrog 4y ago

So if it goes ahead it will generate 10.5GW, but deliver 3.6GW for "20+ hours a day". I guess the 10.5GW figure is peak generation during the day with lots of wind + sun, then by using batteries it will be able to consistently deliver approx 1/3 of that, or 8% of current UK demand (from the article). Makes sense, but the headline used by the submission is a bit misleading. At the same time, the electrification of heating + transport is predicted to approximately double UK electricity demand by 2050. So even if this goes ahead and works as intended, it will end up providing something like 4% of the UK's needs. A whole bunch of comments here comparing this idea negatively to wind, nuclear or tankers filled with hydrogen (?!). Even if it goes ahead, there need to be like a dozen other new projects of similar scale just to meet demand on these small islands. If you also want to provide carbon free electricity to the other 10 billion people likely to be living on this planet by that 2050, then you need to multiply that dozen projects by a factor of at least 100.

BurningFrog 4y ago

> The Morocco-UK Power Project will be powered by a wind and solar farm, approximately 1,500km² in size I'm intrigued by how 1,500km² of partial shade will transform the Sahara ecosystem. I hope it will make more life possible in the shade.

7952 4y ago
Large wind turbines are spread out so will probably occupy much more land but not cast shadow.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Yeah, I was thinking of the solar cells.
missedthecue 4y ago
The Sahara is 9.2 million km². So probably not much change for the ecosystem.

fulafel 4y ago

Editorialized title is wrong, the cable is not 10GW according to the page.

danw1979 4y ago

Wowsers, 200km2 of _tracking_ solar. This is an ambitious project.

aaron695 4y ago

hokkos 4y ago

It seems NordStream 2 teaches us nothing.