HVDC hardware is converging around repeatable 2 GW building blocks, while the surrounding grid still has to solve controls, interoperability and planning.
High-voltage direct current transmission used to look like a specialist technology reserved for unusually long lines, subsea links or awkward grid problems. That is changing. In a recent Redefining Energy conversation, Cornelis Plet, CTO of Grid Systems Integration at GE Vernova, described HVDC as something that is moving into the … [continued]
Canada’s electricity strategy is finally becoming specific enough to test. Ottawa is no longer speaking only about clean power, energy security, nation building and doubling grid capacity. The federal government has started naming provincial boundaries where new electricity infrastructure may cross: British Columbia–Yukon, Alberta–British Columbia, Alberta–Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan–Manitoba and Prince Edward … [continued]
An Irish energy client was speaking with governmental contacts recently, and HVDC risk came up. Not the usual high-level question of whether HVDC is needed for long-distance offshore transmission, because that answer is often yes once projects get large and far enough from shore, but the more awkward question of … [continued]
Canada’s second tranche of Major Projects Office investments arrives with a familiar mixture of ambition and contradiction. Ottawa has presented it as another step in a nation-building program that spans critical minerals, northern electrification, reconciliation, and export capacity. On the surface that sounds like a strategy that lines up with … [continued]
ChatGPT generated panoramic depiction of a future cross-Canada HVDC backbone connecting regions of renewable power
Mark Carney’s first budget as Prime Minister quietly provided Canada with the ingredients for something the country has lacked for a century: a truly national electricity backbone. The Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit, a 15% refundable credit on new generation, storage, and the transmission of electricity between provinces and territories, … [continued]
ChatGPT generated image showing human landscape and engineering side by side, balancing awe with realism
Keith Bradsher’s recent New York Times article on China’s ultra-high-voltage transmission grid is an impressive piece of reporting in scope and ambition. It captures the sheer physical magnitude of what China has built: hundreds of thousands of kilometers of high-voltage corridors, connecting wind, solar, hydro, and coal resources spread across … [continued]
A solar farm in Tibet is 7 times larger than Manhattan. It will be even larger when it is completed a few years from now.
A plan to send renewable energy from Morocco to Germany is moving forward, thanks to new developments in HVDC technology.
ChatGPT generated panoramic cross-section of a Canadian energy corridor, showing crude oil pipelines below and overhead HVDC transmission lines running in parallel
Canada is once again flirting with the idea of an east-west energy corridor. The vision sounds big and bold: a designated path across the country to carry everything from crude oil to natural gas, hydrogen to electricity. In this rapid, Trump-inflected election cycle, political leaders are lining up behind the … [continued]
ChatGPT generated panoramic photo of a huge steam generation turbine rusting in a field surrounded by a wide variety of rabbits
Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Mark O’Malley, Leverhulme Professor of Power Systems at the Imperial College of London and founder of the Global Power System Transformation organization, which was based on the principle of grids moving toward 100% renewables. The grid is the biggest machine in … [continued]
