Trio of Nations Aims to Hook Asia Super Grid to Grids of the World - IEEE Spectrum
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I never understood where the idea that Asians can’t lead came from. All the East Asian tiger economies went from widespread poverty to developed nations in record time. Here, they take their ambitions even further with an envisioned global energy grid starting in Asia. Contrast this to the Western way of securing energy through war crimes.
Trio of Nations Aims to Hook Asia Super Grid to Grids of the World
Northeast Asia, the region encompassing China, South Korea, and Japan, has not yet gotten around to connecting its electricity grids together. But that’s not stopping these countries from promoting the Asia Super Grid, calculated to become the center of a global energy grid providing abundant, cheap electricity based on renewable energy.
The backbone will transmit electricity “at more than 1,000 kilovolts AC and 800 kilovolts DC over thousands of kilometers and interconnect grids across regions, nations, and even continents with a capacity of over 10 gigawatts,” he explained. Nine such grids are already in operation or being constructed in China, he added, so there are no longer any problems concerning the key technologies for GEI.
Meanwhile, the price of wind and solar generated power is falling rapidly. Zhenya said recent PV bid prices for projects in the United Arab Emirates and Chile were as low as 3 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour. Consequently, “according to our calculations, the cost efficiency (of wind and solar generation) will be more than fossil fuel energy by 2025,” he predicted.
The next step, said Zhenya, is to study the technology challenges involved with developing and laying submarine cables to speed up implementation of Northeast Asia interconnections.
Zhenya ended his talk in Tokyo on an upbeat note, saying that with wisdom and an open mind, GEI can be achieved by 2050 as the way to transition to sustainable, low carbon energy that will benefit everyone.Trio of Nations Aims to Hook Asia Super Grid to Grids of the World - IEEE Spectrum:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/the-smarter-grid/trio-of-nations-aim-to-hook-asia-super-grid-to-grids-of-the-worldHere’s a more detailed map.
