The concept of a European supergrid was first launched a decade ago and is defined as:
“An electricity system, mainly based on direct current, designed to facilitate large-scale sustainable power generation in remote areas for transmission to centres of consumption”.
Supergrid is not an extension of existing or planned point to point HVDC interconnectors between particular EU states. Even the aggregation of these schemes will not provide the network that will be needed to carry marine renewable power generated in our Northern seas to the load centres of central Europe.
Supergrid is a new idea. Unlike point to point connections, Supergrid will involve the creation of ‘Supernodes’ to collect, integrate and route the renewable energy to the best available markets. Supergrid is a trading tool which will enhance the security of supply of all the countries of the EU.
There can of course be many forms of Supergrid. The Offshore Supergrid is based on the seas around north western Europe. There will be others such as a solar supergrid in the Mediterranean. These grids will ultimately be linked to supply electricity across the EU.
SuperNode Concept
A SuperNode is a key component of the Supergrid which acts as a hub firstly, for the collection of energy where resources are optimal and secondly to distribute the energy into the existing grid at load centres.
