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Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

pv-magazine.com

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Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#61

Post by pphysch »

streamofdigits wrote: post #51
pphysch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current gang in Canberra/Washington would never do a joint infrastructure project with Beijing, so that Chile might as well go directly there.

If they can agree on carbon emissions, they could probably agree on some coordinated infrastructure. (It doesn't actually have to be common , rather coordinated.) I am sure if politically unencumbered engineers were to sit down they would come up with more or less the same topology...

For sure. But PRC is the undisputed king of large scale infrastructure development in the 21st century, so that would be tantamount to Washington taking a back seat in a Beijing-driven project. Totally unacceptable optics.

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#62

Post by noja »

philipkglass wrote: post #14

European Commission Joint Research Center Technical Reports: HVDC Submarine Power Cables in the World https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/J... According to table 1, losses for 800 kilovolt HVDC systems can be as low as 3.5% per 1000 km. That comes to 52.5% loss over 15,000 km. Losses should go lower at 1100 kilovolts (the highest voltage HVDC systems running today) but I can't find detailed los…

How does it compare to shipping batteries? Is there a way to move batteries efficiently?

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#63

Post by trhway »

philipkglass wrote: post #14

European Commission Joint Research Center Technical Reports: HVDC Submarine Power Cables in the World https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/J... According to table 1, losses for 800 kilovolt HVDC systems can be as low as 3.5% per 1000 km. That comes to 52.5% loss over 15,000 km. Losses should go lower at 1100 kilovolts (the highest voltage HVDC systems running today) but I can't find detailed los…

> than making hydrogen via electrolysis

i'd say synth gas would be more versatile option. Also they can like Iceland export the energy as aluminum or similar products taking a lot of energy to produce. (and a bit dreaming - i think Andes is the place to build a large rail gun style space launcher, and not just for one launch per week like, i mean large spaceport launching stuff non-stop and this is where beside launch energy you'd need energy to produce fuel for the upper stages)

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#64

Post by ZetaZero »

bduerst wrote: post #44
philipkglass wrote: post #14

European Commission Joint Research Center Technical Reports: HVDC Submarine Power Cables in the World https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/J... According to table 1, losses for 800 kilovolt HVDC systems can be as low as 3.5% per 1000 km. That comes to 52.5% loss over 15,000 km. Losses should go lower at 1100 kilovolts (the highest voltage HVDC systems running today) but I can't find detailed los…

Wouldn't you be better of having microwave relay satellites than laying wire? Test satellites for space-based solar power (SBSP) are already going into orbit as soon as next year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power#In_the...

I'd be interested in seeing the math. Would multiple hops and satellites be required? What's the power loss for each hop? What's the cost and capacity for each satellite?

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#65

Post by dreamcompiler »

dakial1 wrote: post #49
mikece wrote: post #23

Wouldn't it be better to induce foreign investors to set up shop in Chile to take advantage of the really cheap and abundant electricity?

If electricity is all they need yes. But if we are talking about labor and source materials and export supply chain, then nothing (currently) beats China.

Not to mention water, which is generally needed for business but which the Atacama desert doesn't have much of.

https://www.mining.com/water-rights-under-scrutiny-in-chiles...

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#66

Post by pelasaco »

Interesting.. i thought it wasn't a good idea, based on this video (The Problem with Solar Energy in Africa, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o) where is stated that Europe failed to do something similar connecting the North of Africa (Morocco and Algeria) to Europe (south of Spain).

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#67

Post by topynate »

philipkglass wrote: post #14

European Commission Joint Research Center Technical Reports: HVDC Submarine Power Cables in the World https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/J... According to table 1, losses for 800 kilovolt HVDC systems can be as low as 3.5% per 1000 km. That comes to 52.5% loss over 15,000 km. Losses should go lower at 1100 kilovolts (the highest voltage HVDC systems running today) but I can't find detailed los…

I make it as (100%-3.5%)^15 ~= 58.6% retained.

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#68

Post by rektide »

I would have assumed corona discharge would be worse in sea-water & made this basically infeasible. The air or sea-water around such high voltage cables gets ionized, even if a strong insulator is used (via quantum tunneling?). I would have thought this effect would be worse in sea-water but perhaps not.

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#69

Post by sudhirj »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #50

I'm curious about this from a security perspective. With oil, coal, and natural gas, a cut in the supply network doesn't necessarily have an immediate impact. Buffers exist in some parts of the distribution network: ships holds, rail cars, and storage tanks. With electricity, it doesn't seem like we have much infrastructure for buffering the supply. So cutting those cables might have an immediate and significant impa…

For one, the power cables seem to be thicker and better shielded than the fiber optic ones.

That aside, I don’t think any economy will rely purely on imported power - backups in the form of natural gas plants or grid scale storage will likely need to form part of the mix - there’s already the chance of some cloudy or rainy days over the solar farms, so it’s unlikely there isn’t a contingency.

Re: Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

#70

Post by shagie »

politician wrote: post #5

Why not turn it into microwaves and bounce it via mirrors in orbit? Those cables are super expensive and there is a current shortage of cable manufacturing capacity globally.

The power loss when talking about cables is considered to be quite a bit at about 50% from napkin calculations.

The power loss of beamed microwaves is a bit more. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2020.12.026

> Finally, the simulation of the long-distance high-power MWPT system can achieve 8.5 kW DC power with about 1% DC–DC transmission efficiency at the operating 2.45 GHz frequency and the 10 km distance away.

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