Is China’s ‘global energy internet’ plan growing in power? Yes, but not as President Xi Jinping envisioned
- For six years, China has been pushing the idea of a worldwide network of supergrids, a reality that could arrive regardless as countries tackle climate goals
Ever since President Xi Jinping pitched the idea of a “global energy internet” to the United Nations six years ago, China has been trying to persuade the world to build the high-voltage highways that would form its backbone. That plan to wrap the planet in a web of intercontinental, made-in-Beijing power lines has gone pretty much nowhere. Yet the fortunes of so-called supergrids appear to be turning, if not on quite the spectacular, Bond-villain scale Xi first envisaged.
China has both a manufacturing and technological edge in ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission lines, and has taken a lead in proposing global technical standards and governance for them. If Xi’s plans are ever realised, those are advantages that some believe could have profound geopolitical implications, granting China power and influence similar to that which the United States gained by shaping the global financial system after World War II.
Yet it is not China that is driving renewed interest in cables that can power consumers in one country with electricity generated hundreds, even thousands of miles away in another. Instead, carbon-neutrality commitments, technological advances and improved cost incentives are accelerating a broad expansion of renewable power generation.
Coal, gas and even nuclear plants can be built close to the markets they serve, but the utility-scale solar and wind farms many believe essential to meet climate targets often cannot. They must be located wherever the wind and sun are strongest, which can be hundreds or thousands of miles from urban centres. Long cables can also connect peak afternoon solar power in one time zone to peak evening demand in another, reducing the price volatility caused by mismatches in supply and demand as well as the need for fossil-fuelled backup capacity when the sun or wind fade.
As countries phase out carbon to meet climate goals, they will have to spend at least US$14 trillion to strengthen grids by 2050, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That is only a little shy of projected spending on new renewable generation capacity and it is increasingly clear that high- and ultra-high-voltage direct current lines will play a part in the transition. The question is, how international will they be?
In April, the European Union set up a working group to help supersize its grid, already the world’s most developed international system for trading electricity, with goals including development of a multi-nation offshore network for wind farms. Denmark in February announced plans to construct one piece, a US$34 billion artificial energy island that will sit at the heart of a hub-and-spoke transmission system. With an eventual targeted capacity of 10 gigawatts, the project would add two-thirds to Denmark’s total existing generation capacity, too much to serve only its home market.
