Supergrid: The future of renewable energy integration

9 March - 10 March 2010

This conference carries 10 CPD Points

The European Union's goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20% and increasing the use of renewable energy by 20% before 2020, is ultimately a step toward achieving the greater goal of generating "decarbonised" electrical power by 2050. Both goals, for a large part depend on harnessing wind power.

As a practical step towards achieving the 20/20 target more than 100GW of offshore wind projects are under development in Europe, representing the potential to generate around 10% of the EU's electricity demand. The UK government earlier this year awarded nine development sites to 12 European firms to develop up to 32GW of offshore wind power. This announcement, on top of 8GW from previous rounds, will mean the building of an extra 6,400 turbines. The scale of the opportunity of these developments in the UK is reflected in the investment needed, which one estimate put at £75 billion by 2020.

A practical challenge in large-scale development of wind power will be creating the infrastructure to deliver the power generated to population centres. This has led nine countries - Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom - to sign the "North Seas" Countries Offshore Grid Initiative," a plan to create an offshore wind power "Supergrid" in the North and North West Seas. Norway is expected to join this group shortly. The agreement is expected to encourage a strategic working plan in which these countries will coordinate to develop the offshore infrastructure without which the 20/20 target will not be met. Additionally, the European Commission, which has also been studying proposals for a renewable-electricity grid in the North Sea, will produce a plan by the end of 2010. The EC working group's findings would be fed into the nine-country grid plan.

The "North Seas' Countries Offshore Grid Initiative" brings the creation of a "Supergrid" a step closer to reality, although the costs of the proposals have yet to be finalised. This timely conference, with a speaker panel of exceptional quality, will look at the issues that still have to be resolved, such as governance, regulation, economics, finance, infrastructure, logistics, transmission and technology.

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