TOPIC 'Wind Power' on Mar 11, 2010 (CET)
European Companies United To Plan Power Super-Grid Strategy
The North Sea is set to be the scenery for a huge European electricity super-grid which is already in planning. The 10 leading companies in the branch gathered to announce a new group which will act to make governments in each country support the super-grid plans.
Phase one of the super-grid won´t be cheap at a price of 34 billion euros. This phase would start with connecting England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Norway and Germany with over 5,000 kilometers of transmission cables and could start as early as 2015. Eddie O´Connor, spokesman of the new group, Friends of the Supergrid, said that this huge group of powerful companies was made of companies like Siemens AG and Areva for example. Among the many larger companies there are also smaller energy research companies active in the group among marine service operators. O´Connor himself plays an important role in the group due to the fact he is the CEO of Ireland's Mainstream Renewable Power Company, which is also a member of the large group.
The super-grid has not yet reached the actual construction phase because it is still in the conceptual phase but in this time the group has already received strong support from nine EU member stated who all strongly believe in a positive effect on the renewable energy industry. The U.K.´s Department of Energy and Climate Change stated that the grid crossing European waters would make the electricity supply even more secure and it should enable the European Union to achieve its goal of producing 20% renewable energy by 2020.
O´Connor continued to explain that the super-grid would be so large that the chance of having a strong wind for example would be multiplied by the amount wind rotors built up and how they are spread out across Europe.
O´Connor proclaimed that Europe has such a large potential that it is definitely able to produce all of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2050. What makes this estimation even more impressive is the fact that Europe only produces between 10% to 12% of its electricity by renewable energy at this time. This would mean an immense growth in renewable energy over the next years once the super-grid comes to a finish. O´Connor said, "The UK government has recently shown its commitment to large-scale offshore wind by announcing the development of up to 50 gigawatts by 2020. We now need to integrate this huge resource into Europe to enable the open trade of electricity between member states.”
He also mentioned that the super-grid would be mainly paid by the private sector and would be able to be completed even without government help but he also reminded that, “Governments are always involved.” By saying this O´Connor was pointing out the fact that governments always want to get involved into projects this size whether this means earning money from it by taxing it, helping it with subsides or using regulations.
The group, Friends of the Supergrid, will be placed in Brussel and there will be a maximum of 20 companies, O´Connor said.
Here are the companies that are part of the group at the moment:
Germany: Siemens and Hochtief AG
France: Areva
Italy: Prysmian SpA
Belgium: Elia System Operator SA
Others: Visser & Smit Marine Contracting and DEME Group.
Jason Grace
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
Technologie Park 13
33100 Paderborn
Germany
