ABSTRACT
Harnessing renewables effectively requires transporting electricity generated by renewable energy to centers of demand. The difficulty of doing this is sometimes underestimated in the policy debate on renewable targets. Renewable energy sources are “fuel from heaven” only if the derived products, mainly electricity are delivered to the customer’s locale on demand. In this context, the concept of a “supergrid,” or transmission overlay network, is being intensely debated on both sides of the Atlantic. This concept has been propelled to center stage by politically bold statements about the future share of large-scale renewable energy sources in a carbon-constrained world. In addition, China has recently started to develop long-distance high-voltage direct current transmission to transport more hydroelectricity from the center of the country to demand locations on its east coast. As the political debate accelerates, however, the pros and cons of supergrids must be objectively assessed and the different, sometimes competing, visions put into a comparative perspective.
