Nine European countries, including Germany, Britain and France, have announced plans to create a huge inter-country power grid in order to utilise electricity from renewable energy production more efficiently.
Europe’s utilities and governments had already planned to build around 100 GW of wind power over the next years, but the current grid arrangement would not be able to properly utilise the power and much of it would be lost.
Germany, Britain, France, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway aim to raise more than AUD $46.7 billion to construct a high-voltage grid under the North Sea to link Northern Europe’s renewable energy generators, according to German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
The grid would connect British and German offshore wind farms with hydro electricity sources in Norway, wave power generators near the Belgium and Danish coastlines, and large wind energy producers and solar farms on the European continent.
First meetings between representatives from the partner countries took place last month in Ireland and will meet again early next month.
The renewable energy super-grid is planned to become operational in 2020 and will involve Europe’s leading utilities, who will share part of the massive price tag.
The project would be the first multinational grid designed to address the fluctuating nature of green power generation, one of the main challenges slowing down the share of renewables in the baseload energy mix.
Energy from power produced from the wind farms at night could be stored in Norway’s hydropower facilities to be released the following day; helping to secure a more stable energy supply.
