Sept. 22, 2011 - Karl-Erik Stromsta - rechargenews.com

An influential group of UK members of parliament warns that without a North Sea supergrid, the social and financial barriers to meeting Britain’s long-term renewables targets will be significantly higher – and potentially insurmountable.

The first phase of the North Sea supergrid proposed by 2020

While the cost of building a network of high-voltage electricity lines spanning the North Sea “could be very high”, doing so would cut by 25% the price tag of linking up offshore wind, wave and tidal farms to the onshore grid, according to Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee.

The supergrid would reduce the strain being imposed on the UK’s ageing onshore grid, and allow the country to flip from being a net importer of energy to a net exporter – perhaps in as little as a decade.

Perhaps most importantly, says committee chairman Tim Yeo, an efficient offshore transmission network would reduce the need for the “army of pylons that’s marching its way across [the British] countryside”, softening the growing public backlash against renewables.

The committee was founded in 2009 to advise the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on the smartest and most cost-effective ways to meet the country’s long-term energy challenges.

We expected them to come out in favour of the supergrid, but we thought they would see it as a project to be tackled some time in the distant future,” says Ana Aguado Cornago, chief executive of the Brussels-based lobbying group Friends of the Supergrid (FOS).

"Instead, they see it as not only a possibility, but something that should be done as quickly as possible – we were not expecting that," Cornago tells Recharge.

If we connect our offshore wind farms one by one, then we’ll see scores of landing points, each twice the size of a football pitch,” says Yeo.

At present the electricity generated at some onshore wind farms is being curtailed due to a lack of adequate transmission infrastructure – a fact that has been repeatedly trumpeted by anti-renewables media outlets.

The committee agrees that such curtailment is “utterly unacceptable”, adding that “unless this problem is addressed, there is a risk that public skepticism about renewable energy – and wind in particular – will grow”.

Plans for the first phase of the supergrid drawn up by FOS would see a “bootstrap” transmission line running down the UK’s east coast from the Firth of Forth to London. That line would then be connected individually to the grids of Belgium, Germany and hydro-rich Norway.

Cornago says the UK and Belgian governments are now clearly on the record as saying they “want the project to move quicker”. The supergrid is expected to cost around €28bn ($37.9bn) for its first phase.

While Germany remains committed in principle, “we haven’t seen the same level of positive public statements” from Berlin.

Initially spearheaded by Irish renewables developer Mainstream Renewable Power, FOS has grown to include 21 companies – including heavy hitters like Siemens, Alstom, Vattenfall and General Electric. Next week it will formally add Intel to its ranks, Cornago says.

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