INTERGRID - Enabling a sustainable energy system by large-scale intercontinental power transmission

The current global energy supply system is clearly unsustainable in that it is largely based on combustion of fossil fuels. Apart from the fact that fossil fuels are a finite resource, their combustion contributes to carbon dioxide emissions which contribute to climate change that may have devastating consequences. Increased use of electricity as an energy carrier could enable a transition to a more sustainable energy system. The use of less carbon-intensive primary energy sources is however impeded by several factors related to the siting of generation. In a more sustainable energy system generation facilities need to be located very far from load centers. Nuclear power plants should be located far from densely populated areas in regions without seismic activity, for safety reasons. To counteract the temporal variability of uncontrollable renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, it is desired to pool the output from several plants over a very large area. The paper will discuss the potential and feasibility of a global overlay grid with the capability of solving the above problems. This grid would connect the continents and have capacity significantly higher than any present transmission facilities. This implies a rating of a single power corridor of tens or even hundreds of gigawatts.