Unsexy but Vital: Transmission lines

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The world’s transition away from fossil fuels and to clean, sustainable energy is in full swing - and it truly is a mammoth task. According to the International Energy Agency, governments and industry worldwide spent US$ 11.7 trillion inflation adjusted) on clean energy from 2015 to 2023, and is set to reach US $2 trillion in 2024 alone (compared with $ 1 trillion on fossil fuels).

Most people tend to think about the energy transition in terms of generation, because that is fundamentally what needs to change - from burning dinosaur juice to using other sources that (a) won’t run out, and (b) won’t pollute the planet.

But today we’re going to take a look at a less sexy but just as important aspect of the energy transition, namely the main way electricity will get from where it’s generated to where it’s needed - Transmission.

Transmission: essential to the Renewable Energy Transition

Shifting away from fossil fuels will be the biggest major change in our planet’s industrial landscape for the past 200 years. News about the transition tends to focus on renewable energy technologies and which combination of them will be better, however there are also other major impacts of the transition:

• Policy and Regulatory Changes: Governments worldwide are implementing policies and regulations to support the growth of renewable energy. This includes subsidies, tax incentives, and renewable energy targets, which encourage investment in renewable technologies and infrastructure.
• Intermittency and Grid Management: Renewable energy sources are inherently intermittent. Solar power is only available during the day, and wind power fluctuates with wind speeds. This requires advanced grid management and the integration of energy storage solutions such as batteries to balance supply and demand.
• Energy Storage Solutions: To mitigate the intermittency of renewables, energy storage technologies such as lithium-ion batteries, pumped hydro storage, and emerging technologies like hydrogen storage are becoming integral to the energy production cycle. These storage solutions ensure a stable supply of electricity even when renewable sources are not producing.
• Decentralisation of Energy Production: Renewable energy sources like solar and wind are often distributed across many small-scale installations rather than concentrated in large power plants. This decentralisation reduces the reliance on a few large generators and increases the resilience of the energy grid.
• Infrastructure Upgrades: The transition to renewables necessitates significant upgrades to existing energy infrastructure. This includes expanding and modernising the transmission grid to connect remote renewable energy sites, as well as developing smart grid technologies to manage the variable output from these sources.

Decentralisation and Infrastructure

Those last two - Decentralisation and Infrastructure, go hand in hand. Fossil fuel energy generation relied on digging up the fuels themselves (coal, oil, gas) and transporting them long distances to generation sites. Once energy was generated from the fuel, it would then also need to be transported long distances via Transmission networks to where it would be used - the Distribution network.

Transporting fossil fuels from mining to distribution sites is very big business - here is a back of envelope calculation of the total distance travelled for all fossil fuels transported in a single year, based on the International Energy Agency’s estimated volumes traded/transported in 2023:

Coal

• Volume transported internationally: 1.4 billion tonnes
• Average transport distance: Major coal routes, such as Australia to China (8,000 km) and Indonesia to India (5,000 km), give an average transport distance of around 6,500 km.

1.4 billion tonnes × 6,500 km = 9.1 trillion tonne-kilometres

Oil

• Volume transported internationally: 42 million barrels per day
• Total annual volume: 42 million barrels/day×365 days=15.33 billion barrels

15.33 billion barrels × 13,500 km = 206 trillion barrel-kilometres

Natural Gas (LNG)

• Volume transported internationally: 520 billion cubic metres
• Average transport distance: Major LNG routes, such as Qatar to Japan (10,000 km) and Australia to South Korea (8,000 km), give an average distance of around 9,000 km.

520 billion cubic metres × 9,000 km=4.68 trillion cubic metre-kilometres

Total Kilometres Travelled

Summing these estimates gives the total transport in tonne-kilometres (for coal and LNG, we can consider their volume equivalent to tonnes for simplicity, even though precise density factors would slightly adjust these figures):

9.1 trillion tonne-kilometres (coal) + 206 trillion barrel-kilometres (oil) + 4.68 trillion cubic metre-kilometres (LNG) ≈ 219.78 trillion kilometres

(Roughly 220 Trillion kilometres travelled annually is a very, very, very big number. The human brain struggles to comprehend very large numbers, mainly because of their cognitive load - they exceed the capacity of our working memory. We’re generally ok at grasping anything up to a Million as long as it’s compared to something tangible, like dollars, or population sizes. Trying to comprehend a Billion of something is pushing beyond our cognitive limit without some serious effort, and a strong context - that’s why it’s easier to picture a Billionaire than it is to picture their wealth. So a Trillion of anything is literally unimaginable. )

220 Trillion kilometres of fossil fuel shipments annually is really important to know - because “decentralised energy production” will mean removing that existing energy supply chain to get fuel to generation sites, and introducing new supply chains to get generated energy to where it can be used - the Transmission network.

Existing Transmission networks

We already have existing Transmission networks though, right? How hard could it be to just add extra lines to them?

We’re going to look at some more large numbers to explain this, but thankfully we can scale them down to imaginable sizes:

The length of electricity transmission lines per capita varies significantly among Western countries, reflecting differences in population density, infrastructure investment, and geographic size. For instance, in general terms, developed countries tend to have more extensive and high-voltage transmission networks due to better financing capabilities and advanced grid infrastructures.

Globally, an estimated rule of thumb indicates that each terawatt-hour (TWh) of electricity use is supported by around 225 kilometres of transmission lines. Western countries, with their extensive electrification and large-scale power generation, often exceed this average.

Australia’s Transmission network is NOT the largest in the world (it’s beaten by the United States, Chine, Russia, and the European Union), but it is the world’s longest interconnected power system, meaning a network of Transmission lines that connect multiple power sources with consumers via Distribution networks across a wide geographic area.

What will new Transmission networks look like?

Think about what decentralisation of power generation means: renewable energy produced where it is most efficient.

This means generating Solar power where it’s sunniest, Wind power where it’s windiest, Geothermal power where the ground is warmest, Hydro power where water can be stored up high, etc.

Transmission lines can be built new or added to existing networks to transport from those sites to where it can be used - and these won’t always be within national boundaries!

They can also utilise existing technologies:

Viking Link

Viking Link is a joint venture between the United Kingdom’s National Grid plc and Energinet (the Danish Transmission system operator). In physical terms, it’s a 1,400MW High-Voltage Direct Current submarine power cable connecting the UK and Denmark. The cable is 745km long.

Why build it? Because wind power is intermittent, but rarely in both UK and Denmark at the same time! So periods of high production in each country can be better matched to periods of high demand in the other - helping with Intermittency and Grid Management.

Singapore

Singapore does not have enough space for large-scale Solar power generation, and lacks resources for Wind, Hydro, and Geothermal. So it’s going to import power from its neighbours - Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos (via Thailand and Malaysia).

Sun Cable

The on-again, off-again Sun Cable project has last week received its principal environmental approval from the Northern Territory government for it’s Australia-Asia Powerlink interconnector - another submarine Transmission cable that (if it goes ahead) will provide Singapore with 15% of its total energy needs - fully half of Singapore’s 2035 target of 30% renewable energy supply.

Sun Cable does more than just a Transmission cable though - it is planning to build the world’s largest renewable energy precinct:

• a 12,400 hectare solar farm in the Northern Territory, generating 10 GW
• an 800km overhead Transmission line connecting the solar farm to Darwin
• an additional wind farm generating 2 GW to supply Darwin
• the 4,200km submarine Transmission cable
• Battery storage at the solar and wind farms, in Darwin, and in Singapore

Sun Cable's plans will take some time to come to fruition though. While it has received environmental approval, that was only for the solar farm. it still needs to negotiate land-use agreements with traditional owner groups for the line to Darwin.

Other major planned Transmission projects

Those transmission projects aren’t the only ones though - many more are in the pipeline globally, including:

• a 339 mile line from a Hydro generation site in Quebec to New York City
• a 550 mile line from a Wind generation site in New Mexico to Arizona and California
• the Great Sea Interconnector - a more than 1,200km, 2,000 MW submarine line to connect the power grids of Greece, Cyprus, and Israel (when complete it will be the world’s longest and deepest submarine Transmission cable)
• Neuconnect - a 725km, 1.4 GW submarine Transmission cable between Wind generation sites in northern Germany and those in the united Kingdom

Transmission is crucial for the energy transmission

The renewable energy transition means changing our existing energy supply chains:

• from obtaining fossil fuels from decentralised mines worldwide and transporting them unimaginable distances to centralised generation sites, accessing existing Transmission networks;
• to obtaining renewable energy at decentralised generation sites, accessing existing and new Transmission networks.

Transmission networks are not currently the sexiest part of the energy transition, but maybe they should be.

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👋 Hi, I'm the founder of Ascern Advisers. We provide Part-time, Virtual, and Interim CFOs for businesses with Growth Potential. DM me or email me at david@ascern.com.au if you want to chat.