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

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

#101

Post by frazbin »

disco_nap wrote: post #78
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…

Are the losses thermal? How significantly could this change the ocean temperature near the cable? 50% of 600 GW is enough to cause a 10C increase in the temperature of 10 million liters of seawater every second?

hmm, 500 gigawatts dissipated over 300k square gigameters of ocean surface gives a forcing effect of 1.6 milliwatts per square meter. Global warming right now is forcing 1w/sqm, so it's not a problem at this scale. But it's not a crazy question either.

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

#102

Post by TremendousJudge »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #26

Casey Handmer calculated that it was cheaper to produce solar power in Boston for local use than it was to ship solar power from Arizona to Boston.[1] Solar power is 3X as expensive to produce in Boston, but HVDC lines are even more expensive. If it's uneconomical to ship from Arizona to Boston, then Chile to Asia seems even more problematic. Although in this case the submarine HVDC line is competing against batterie…

Yeah but as others pointed out, you can't produce solar power at night, no matter how costly the transmission is compared to local panels. Chile can produce solar power while it's nighttime in China.

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

#103

Post by theptip »

This idea has been floating around for a long time, I first encountered it as https://www.desertec.org/. It's great to see an ambitious project that would test the viability further.

There was a proposal to connect north Africa to Europe with HVDC lines, that seems a lot more feasible being only ~2000 km: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec#High-voltage_direct_c...

It's also a more compelling story when the connection is part of a "super-grid" that blends disparate energy sources from many countries, as this could even out a lot of the local fluctuations that make renewables challenging, and as other commenters here have noted, even better if you can pull solar from another timezone when your local solar cells are not producing anything.

Given the level of infrastructure investment that China is deploying currently, it wouldn't surprise me to see many more projects like this emerging. (Though China has enough territory that they could reap the gains of HVDC-connected renewable generation without necessarily involving other countries.)

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

#105

Post by msandford »

What's strange about all this to me is the whole "duck curve" that we've heard so much about doesn't seem to be factored in. Or if so, perhaps I've misunderstood it.

My understanding is that peak solar is maybe 10-4ish but peak demand is 3-9ish. Doesn't that mean you'd prefer to make investments ~5000mi (5 timezones) west of your main territory?

Here in the US you could do a lot having the west coast pick up a lot of the evening demand for the east coast, but then you'd need floating solar/wind or whatever to pick up the demand for the rest of the country as the sun continues to head west.

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

#106

Post by mataug »

janmo wrote: post #100
mataug wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, I can see how this could be better than battery based storage for night time. But I wonder if wind power coupled with some limited battery storage, geo thermal, and newer generation nuclear peaker power plants can solve this problem instead of laying a mega cable under the ocean.

It is not only about night time but also about inverted seasons. When it is summer in Chile it will be winter in China.

Thats fair, but I still think that a 15,000Km undersea cable adds a lot more complexity and cost when compared to diversifying renewable low carbon power generation within Asia

Also the cost of laying that cable is going to be baked into the cost power coming from Chile, and this might make it far less economically viable when compared to adding redundant power generation capacity in Asia.

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

#107

Post by trixie_ »

simion314 wrote: post #97
blocked_again wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a power generation company run by Joe Biden with his white House staff vs Elon Musk with his Tesla staff. Which stock would you buy? I bet the Biden company will go bankrupt in a few years let alone go public.

You mean Elon companies that have received a ton of money from various governments? Without the government Elon would make cars for rich kids only.

If only the government had helped Boeing and Ford, they could be as successful as SpaceX and Tesla.

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

#108

Post by bryanlarsen »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #102
bryanlarsen wrote: post #26

Casey Handmer calculated that it was cheaper to produce solar power in Boston for local use than it was to ship solar power from Arizona to Boston.[1] Solar power is 3X as expensive to produce in Boston, but HVDC lines are even more expensive. If it's uneconomical to ship from Arizona to Boston, then Chile to Asia seems even more problematic. Although in this case the submarine HVDC line is competing against batterie…

Yeah but as others pointed out, you can't produce solar power at night, no matter how costly the transmission is compared to local panels. Chile can produce solar power while it's nighttime in China.

A big part of Casey's calculations are the cost of batteries. Batteries are expensive, but not as expensive as HVDC lines.

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

#109

Post by mNovak »

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...

The loss on microwave relay is just incredibly high (think >90% power loss), because it goes as distance^2.

Also there's physical limits on how tight the resulting beam of energy can be -- it's not a laser beam, it'd be irradiating 100s m^2 if not km^2 with whatever it's peak W/m^2 is. Also it can't be anywhere near a useful radio band, because interference.

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

#110

Post by elil17 »

frazbin wrote: post #101
disco_nap wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the losses thermal? How significantly could this change the ocean temperature near the cable? 50% of 600 GW is enough to cause a 10C increase in the temperature of 10 million liters of seawater every second?

hmm, 500 gigawatts dissipated over 300k square gigameters of ocean surface gives a forcing effect of 1.6 milliwatts per square meter. Global warming right now is forcing 1w/sqm, so it's not a problem at this scale. But it's not a crazy question either.

It’s not evenly spread, though. It’s concentrated along the cable. It won’t heat up the ocean much as a whole, but it will create “hot spots”, which may change the balance of ecosystems in the regions of the ocean the cable passes through.

Worth it to stop carbon emissions? Absolutely, in my opinion.

Something that should be considered and minimized if possible? Also yes.

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