As the world gradually undergoes a green transition, we will increasingly rely on undersea connectivity in the future to share green energy resources. Many countries around the globe are rapidly developing their renewable energy capacity in a bid to transition away from a reliance on fossil fuels and tackle climate change. The biggest issue with the most-used green energy sources is the lack of reliability. For example, solar and wind farms only deliver energy when the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing. While many energy companies are investing in utility-scale battery technology, to help store this clean energy to transfer to the grid when no electricity is being generated on-site, batteries have a limited storage capacity. This has led many companies to pursue the development of undersea cables, which could be used to link different countries and share clean energy resources.
High-voltage power cables can carry renewable power from offshore energy farms to the land or from country to country. Submarine cables contain optical fibres that carry vast amounts of electricity from one side to the other. These fibres are sheathed in several layers of insulation to make them waterproof and protect the cable’s internal components. Polyethylene is widely used to provide electrical insulation and protect the optical fibres from water damage, helping the cable to perform efficiently and last longer.
Etchea Energy is one of the companies looking to develop large-scale undersea connectivity projects to improve access to renewable energy at all times of the day and night. The firm hopes to connect Europe and North America via the world’s largest subsea energy interconnector between continents, by using three pairs of high-voltage cables. The cables would span over 2,000 miles across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, connecting the west of the U.K. with eastern Canada and New York with western France. If approved, the project is expected to transport around 6 GW of clean energy back and forth between the two continents at the speed of light, which is similar to the energy produced in six large-scale nuclear power plants.
The aim is to transport renewable energy from east to west and west to east to benefit from longer hours of daylight. Simon Ludlam, founder and CEO of Etchea Energy, explained, “When the sun is at its zenith, we probably have more power in Europe than we can really use.” Ludlam added, “We’ve got wind, and we’ve also got too much solar. That’s a good time to send it to a demand centre, like the East Coast of the United States.” Then, “Five, six hours later, it’s the zenith in the East Coast, and obviously, we in Europe have come back for dinner, and we get the reverse flow.”
While this proposal is far from being a reality, several companies are developing shorter undersea cables to transport clean energy. Achieving a green transition will likely rely on the sharing of resources, particularly with regions that have not yet developed their green energy industry. It will also reduce the reliance on batteries alone to store and distribute electricity during peak hours when the grid is oversaturated.
Several undersea cables already exist, connecting countries within the same region across shorter distances. For example, the U.K. is connected with Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark via undersea cables. It also has plans to establish a new solar and wind connection with Morocco, through the Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project, to benefit from the North African country’s abundance of wind and sun. The first-of-a-kind project is expected to span 2,485 miles and generate 11.5 GW of zero-carbon solar and wind energy to deliver 3.6 GW of reliable energy for around 19 hours a day. Once complete, it is expected to provide clean electricity to approximately 7 million British homes and be capable of supplying 8 percent of Great Britain’s electricity needs.
The development of cross-country undersea cables will rely heavily on the establishment of strong geopolitical relations. Countries creating these links must sign energy-sharing agreements and establish clear sectoral regulations and standards to safeguard their energy security. While energy sharing is no easy feat, both in terms of the complex technologies involved and the reliance on other world powers, many countries are discussing the potential to grow this technology.
The firm Sun Cable plans to connect Australia, which has abundant land and sunny weather conditions, to Singapore in Southeast Asia, which has little space for solar farm development. Meanwhile, India and Saudi Arabia hope to connect their power grids using a cable in the Arabian Sea, to support the development of a broad economic corridor between the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
We are seeing a new era of energy sharing via underwater cables, a sector which is expected to expand rapidly in the coming decades. The use of undersea cables will help accelerate the green transition globally, helping countries that have not developed their green energy resources to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels as well as boost the stability of renewable energy sources across different regions of the world. However, using undersea cables to share energy will require the rollout of rigorous international standards and sectoral regulations, as well as strong geopolitical relations across power-sharing regions.
By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com