Team Effort: Supergrid

When the government really gets behind a project, sometimes it can pull off some pretty impressive work.

In this case, a continent-spanning, green “supergrid” in Europe. Nine countries are collaborating on a massive energy project that would link wind turbines, tidal energy systems, solar farms and hyrdro power sites all across the North Sea region.

The nine nations – Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom – are expected to formally approve the project this month, and hope to have firm plans in place by Fall. Various estimates have pegged the cost at close to 30 billion euro.

The vision is to connect wind farms in Scotland, solar facilities and Germany and tidal power systems in Belgium and Denmark through a vast network of high-capacity, undersea DC cables. Direct current transmission lines cost more than AC, organizers say, but lose less energy over long distances.

The project has one more component that seems especially clever: all these alt-energy systems will be linked to a network of hydroelectric plants in Norway. When the wind is a’blowin’ and the waves are a’crashin’ and the sun is a’shinin’ there’s going to be plenty of juice, and the excess power can be diverted to Norway, to push water uphill. Then, when the weather is less cooperative, the water can flow downhill to power the hydro plants.

The EU has pledged to generate 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2020; that’s an ambitious target, but projects like this one could certainly help them get there.