Nine European countries have agreed to work together to build an electricity "super-grid" which will allow them to integrate their renewable energy production and storage facilities.

The nine countries - Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland and the UK - are planning a network made up of thousands of kilometres of highly efficient undersea cables that could cost up to €30 billion ($au47 billion).

The network would connect wind turbines off the coast of Scotland, solar panel arrays in Germany and wave power plants off Belgium and Denmark with hydro-electric dams in Norway.

More than 100 gigawatts of offshore wind projects are under development in Europe, mainly in the North Sea. Norway’s many hydro-electric dams could be used like a giant battery with surplus energy produced when winds are blowing being used to pump water uphill to be released through turbines and generate electricty when the wind and solar power being generated is inadequate.

The North Sea grid could link into grids stretching from the North African desserts across the Mediterranean, proposed for the even larger German-led plan for renewables, called the Desertec Industrial Initiative, which was launched last November. This aims to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity by 2050 (or earlier).

The Desertec project plans to use concentrated solar power plants in Norh Africa and Southern Europe.  In these plants, mirrors concentrate the sun’s rays on a fluid container and the super-heated liquid drives turbines to generate electricity.

If you found this item interesting, please let others know:

Such as Australia’s Snowy Mountains Scheme:

How It Works

The Australian Institute of Energy has produced a Fact Sheet on hydroelectric power with a focus on small (grid-connected) and micro (not grid-connected) systems. Click here to download the Fact Sheet (687K pdf).

If you found this item interesting, please let others know:

Seven African governments and the world’s largest banks and construction firms met in London this week to plan the most powerful dam ever conceived - an $US 80 billion hydro power project on the Congo River.

The Grand Inga dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo would generate twice as much electricity as the world’s current largest dam, the Three Gorges in China. The dam would be about 145 kilometres from the mouth of the Congo, the world’s second largest river, where the river drops 100 metres in about 14 kilometres of rapids. One proposal is for a dam 150 metres high with 52 turbines each producing as much electricity as a nuclear power station. The total output would be 40,000 MW - enough to supply all of Southern Africa.

Some 500 million Africans, including 94% of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are not connected to the electricity grid. According to Gerald Doucet, Secretary General of the World Energy Council, which convened the London meeting, this will be "the greatest sustainable development project, offering Africa a unique chance for interdependence and prosperity".

However, Terri Hathaway, Africa campaigner with International Rivers, a watchdog group monitoring the project, argues that  the project’s electricity is unlikely to benefit those not yet connected to the grid because of the enormous cost of building the necessary distribution system. It is more likely that the electricity would be exported to South Africa and Egypt, and even to Israel and Europe, or used in exploiting the mineral wealth of Katanga.  Already the output from two small dams on the Congo River is going exclusively to the Katanga mines, bypassing the local people who have no access to electricity.

The Congo River watershed

If you found this item interesting, please let others know: