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Looking forward to the day when solar dominates and we can transmit from the sunny side of the world to the dark side... I think there are already some plans fo

Looking forward to the day when solar dominates and we can transmit from the sunny side of the world to the dark side... I think there are already some plans for a pan-European grid, maybe even a European/Asian grid. The bigger the grid, the more resilient solar is. It would also make the world more interdependent and thus hopefully more peaceful. I remember reading about this in IEEE. If you google "hypergrid IEEE" you can find papers in IEEE explore, but there was also a perspective that was more readable that I read a few years ago...

echelon 1y ago
I'm not sure how practical that would be. Transmitting power over distances incurs losses. I did see a proposal to build out solar in Africa and pipe it undersea to Europe. That seemed wild, and, predictably, it got canned for its impracticality. Edit - it looks like there are several such proposals, and that they're not all cancelled: Several travel across the Mediterranean: https://gregy-interconnector.gr/index_en.html https://gregy-interconnector.gr/index_en.html https://www.ecofinagency.com/news-industry/0210-49221-egypt-greece-advance-plan-for-3-000-mw-undersea-link-to-europe https://www.ecofinagency.com/news-industry/0210-49221-egypt-... Here's the one I thought was cancelled, which travels along the western coast of Africa to the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco%E2%80%93UK_Power_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco%E2%80%93UK_Powe... https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://thenational-the-national-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/business/uk/2023/09/29/britain-backs-undersea-cable-project-to-tap-moroccan-solar-power/ https://thenational-the-national-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/...
- tehjoker 1y ago
  I suspect a mix of batteries and baseload delivery from the sunny side will be helpful. Even a few more hours of daylight from across the country can help batteries "last longer" by shortening the demand period.
- hvb2 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec For those interested
- mapontosevenths 1y ago
  I feel like it would be more feasible than that to just put something in space and beam it down by laser/maser/whateber, that way it's outside the penumbra and can be in full light 24/7.
  - tehjoker 1y ago
    I feel like this makes some sense, but imagine the laser gets a degree or two misaligned....
  - fwip 1y ago
    At risk of being annoying - getting solar panels to space is expensive. Even though you can make them very thin in space, optimistic estimates I've seen are around 1kg/kilowatt for just the panels, at some point in the future. (Current designs are closer to 10kg/kw). Once you add in the weight of the electronics & beam, I'm not sure it makes financial sense. Last I've seen, it would cost (roughly) $5k per kilogram that you deliver to space. Local costs for rooftop solar that I've seen are around $3k per kilowatt - and that's after the cost of installation, including power hookups, etc. Once you factor in the efficiency loss from beaming down the power (plus the cost of building the base stations, and the cost of manufacturing these awesome solar panels), I'm not sure that it makes economic sense.
    - mapontosevenths 1y ago
      You're right of course. It only makes any sense in this context because we're literally comparing it to building and maintaining undersea cables to the other side of the earth (and maybe not even then).
      - fwip 1y ago
        To be completely honest - I forgot that we were talking about undersea cables, so thank you for the reminder.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  > I did see a proposal to build out solar in Africa and pipe it undersea to Europe. That seemed wild, and, predictably, it got canned for its impracticality. That doesn't seem _that_ wild? The Strait of Gibraltar is only about 15km wide. There are far longer HVDC undersea lines than that in Europe (longest is nearly 800km), and in China there's a 3,000km land-based HVDC line. The real challenge here (besides the "it will be cheaper if you wait another year" problem that kinda haunts big solar/battery/HVDC projects at the moment; costs are falling fast enough that sometimes the economics are to wait) is political. Do we want to be in a situation where the European grid is dependent on, say, Algeria? Probably not; been there, done that with Russia.
  - DamonHD 1y ago
    Spain already has an interconnector with Morocco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain-Morocco_interconnection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain-Morocco_interconnection
mapontosevenths 1y ago
Why transmit it rather than just storing the unused power for later near the source?
- immibis 1y ago
  Because only one of those things is something we know how to do on the scale required.
hinkley 1y ago
To transmit power you will need battery storage on both sides of long distance power lines. We never build enough of them, but if you can peak shave and trough fill with stored power, you increase the MWH per day available on the far end. Solar tends to come with battery storage. But you could also just build the battery storage.
cycomanic 1y ago
The Pan-European grid is already reality. The fluctuating generation costs between e.g. the Nordics and mainland Europe are already driving investment into undersea HVDC cables.

echelon 1y ago

I'm not sure how practical that would be. Transmitting power over distances incurs losses. I did see a proposal to build out solar in Africa and pipe it undersea to Europe. That seemed wild, and, predictably, it got canned for its impracticality. Edit - it looks like there are several such proposals, and that they're not all cancelled: Several travel across the Mediterranean: https://gregy-interconnector.gr/index_en.html https://gregy-interconnector.gr/index_en.html https://www.ecofinagency.com/news-industry/0210-49221-egypt-greece-advance-plan-for-3-000-mw-undersea-link-to-europe https://www.ecofinagency.com/news-industry/0210-49221-egypt-... Here's the one I thought was cancelled, which travels along the western coast of Africa to the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco%E2%80%93UK_Power_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco%E2%80%93UK_Powe... https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ https://thenational-the-national-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/business/uk/2023/09/29/britain-backs-undersea-cable-project-to-tap-moroccan-solar-power/ https://thenational-the-national-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/...

tehjoker 1y ago
I suspect a mix of batteries and baseload delivery from the sunny side will be helpful. Even a few more hours of daylight from across the country can help batteries "last longer" by shortening the demand period.
hvb2 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec For those interested
mapontosevenths 1y ago
I feel like it would be more feasible than that to just put something in space and beam it down by laser/maser/whateber, that way it's outside the penumbra and can be in full light 24/7.
- tehjoker 1y ago
  I feel like this makes some sense, but imagine the laser gets a degree or two misaligned....
- fwip 1y ago
  At risk of being annoying - getting solar panels to space is expensive. Even though you can make them very thin in space, optimistic estimates I've seen are around 1kg/kilowatt for just the panels, at some point in the future. (Current designs are closer to 10kg/kw). Once you add in the weight of the electronics & beam, I'm not sure it makes financial sense. Last I've seen, it would cost (roughly) $5k per kilogram that you deliver to space. Local costs for rooftop solar that I've seen are around $3k per kilowatt - and that's after the cost of installation, including power hookups, etc. Once you factor in the efficiency loss from beaming down the power (plus the cost of building the base stations, and the cost of manufacturing these awesome solar panels), I'm not sure that it makes economic sense.
  - mapontosevenths 1y ago
    You're right of course. It only makes any sense in this context because we're literally comparing it to building and maintaining undersea cables to the other side of the earth (and maybe not even then).
    - fwip 1y ago
      To be completely honest - I forgot that we were talking about undersea cables, so thank you for the reminder.
rsynnott 1y ago
> I did see a proposal to build out solar in Africa and pipe it undersea to Europe. That seemed wild, and, predictably, it got canned for its impracticality. That doesn't seem _that_ wild? The Strait of Gibraltar is only about 15km wide. There are far longer HVDC undersea lines than that in Europe (longest is nearly 800km), and in China there's a 3,000km land-based HVDC line. The real challenge here (besides the "it will be cheaper if you wait another year" problem that kinda haunts big solar/battery/HVDC projects at the moment; costs are falling fast enough that sometimes the economics are to wait) is political. Do we want to be in a situation where the European grid is dependent on, say, Algeria? Probably not; been there, done that with Russia.
- DamonHD 1y ago
  Spain already has an interconnector with Morocco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain-Morocco_interconnection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain-Morocco_interconnection

mapontosevenths 1y ago

Why transmit it rather than just storing the unused power for later near the source?

immibis 1y ago
Because only one of those things is something we know how to do on the scale required.

hinkley 1y ago

To transmit power you will need battery storage on both sides of long distance power lines. We never build enough of them, but if you can peak shave and trough fill with stored power, you increase the MWH per day available on the far end. Solar tends to come with battery storage. But you could also just build the battery storage.

cycomanic 1y ago

The Pan-European grid is already reality. The fluctuating generation costs between e.g. the Nordics and mainland Europe are already driving investment into undersea HVDC cables.