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Not accounting loss in transmission lines over long distances and cost of building even-higher voltage lines than those already used in the normal grid that's o
by rpigab 3y ago
Not accounting loss in transmission lines over long distances and cost of building even-higher voltage lines than those already used in the normal grid that's optimized to serve consumers closest to power stations, else Africa would be powering most of Europe.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoChina already has country spanning HVDC and UHVDC to bring hydro and coal to the cities in other regions that need it.
- ianburrell 3y agoTransmission losses with HVDC lines are small, 3.5% per 1000km. China are experts in ultra-high-voltage transmission lines. And are building a ton of solar plants in the western deserts. There are proposals to install solar panels in North Africa and run HVDC lines to Europe. There was one recently about running a line all the way to Britain from Morocco.
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y agoI'd say they are expert buyers & users, because all you see are cars and logos of western companies like Siemens, ABB and so on, implementing them.
- ben_w 3y agoEven if you made a bog standard HVDC cable and wrapped it all the way around the planet[0], the transmission losses are only 60% or so, which is smaller than the price difference between PV (or wind) and nuclear. [0] don't do that, the current cables are optimised for the current transmission distances, so it's simultaneously easy (wider cables have less resistance) and harder (you need to care about earthquakes) to make a different design better suited for global scale