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Sam Shead
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Iceland's volcanoes could power the UK: but at what cost?
The government is considering the possibility of using geothermal energy generated in Iceland to power homes in the UK through sea-floor cables that would link to a Europe-wide supergrid. But what are the technical and political implications of creating a new European supergrid?
The idea of introducing new interconnector cables over the next decade to link the UK to a Europe-wide supergrid — that would also harness wind and wave power of northern Europe with solar projects in Southern Europe and North Africa — has been backed by the UK’s Prime Minister. There are two existing international interconnecters linking Britain to the Netherlands and France but nine more are at various stages of development, including the UK-Iceland interconnector.
In theory it’s possible to pump low-carbon electricity from Iceland to the UK to meet up to a third of the UK’s average energy consumption through thousands of miles of high-voltage copper-cable that would be placed along the ocean floor.
Interconnector cables can be laid at 30km per day but for the plan to work, the cable would have to be by far the longest in the world - between 1,000 and 1,500km - with each kilometre containing 800 tonnes of copper. While this would undoubtedly be a huge engineering project - with costs likely to be far greater than the £500m Britain-Netherlands interconnector - it could still be completed relatively quickly.
The financial costs are one thing but many people may believe that we should not be looking overseas to meet Britain’s energy demand. The UK used to be fairly self-sufficient in oil, gas, and coal, but that has changed recently as the North Sea oil and gas reserves near depletion and coal’s damaging effects to the environment are recognised. While there are other energy sources available in Britain — such as wind and solar — their cost effectiveness remains uncertain.
Jonathan Farr, a DECC spokesperson, told The Engineer: ‘The idea of the Iceland project is to ensure we’ve got access to energy when we need it. The UK has lots and lots of power — enough to meet demand — but it’s the intermittency [of the renewables] that is a problem.’
Farr used the example of UK homes in the middle of winter when someone boiling a kettle in a fully heated house with the TV on, compared to 3am in the middle of summer when next to no energy is being consumed. ‘Now is it worth having all that capacity built and ready standing, if elsewhere it’s just there and available through a pipe?’ Farr asked.
The ambitious idea of pumping energy to the UK will be discussed in greater detail in May when Energy Minister Charles Hendry visits Iceland to discuss connecting the UK to its abundant supply of geothermal energy. Hendry believes that a web of interconnector cables ending the energy isolation of the British Isles will keep household energy bills down, as they would allow access to the cheapest energy at any particular time.
The general idea of pouring surplus renewable energy reserves into one big European pot is a sensible one. But the project will only become a reality if sufficient private funding can be located and governments across the continent can agree on the appropriate terms and conditions for investment and exploitation.
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Readers' comments (39)
Jeremy | 13 Apr 2012 1:56 pm
As much as I applaud the engineering skills and endeavours of projects such as these, I cannot help think that we need to remove our dependency on energy from overseas and look upon the generation of electricity as a possible export to other countries such as Germany who have 'boxed' themselves into polarised thinking on renewables.
Geo-thermal energy is available in this country and although more difficult to harness than in a location like Iceland doesn't have to be transported thousands of miles and does not reek havoc on our economy but quite the opposite.
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Carolyn Knight | 13 Apr 2012 2:05 pm
It would probably be cheaper to deep-drill in the U.K. and harvest geothermal energy that way. A European grid makes far too much sense. Therefore it will never happen.
Solar power from the Sahara should be on the cards but then there's the politicians....
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Mike McClory | 13 Apr 2012 2:16 pm
I'm all for an HVDC 'super grid' to transfer energy around Europe and North Africa. The idea has been touted around for a long time (most recently by Desertec).
But what's the largest capacity of any of these interconnectors? Would they really be capable of catering with the intermittancy problems associated with some renewables?
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sinnadurai sripadmanaban | 13 Apr 2012 2:21 pm
If the volcano erupts will it destroy the geothermal plant and substation
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Grand Pubah | 13 Apr 2012 2:23 pm
I thought that this was an Engineering magazine. No mention at all of energy losses in a 1500km cable?
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Editor's comments | 13 Apr 2012 2:23 pm
According to Siemens, for every 1,000km a DC line will lose less than 3%.
DC line losses are 30-40% less than AC lines, which is good because long-distance cable transmission DC is the only solution from both a technical and economic perspective.
roy hodson | 13 Apr 2012 2:48 pm
Tidal power.. you dont have to go thousands of miles away. It's here all of the time its green and it just needs investing in.
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Brian M | 13 Apr 2012 2:57 pm
Editors comment
"for every 1,000km a DC line will lose less than 3%. "
Pity - was thinking we would get our cod pre-cooked!
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John Davies | 13 Apr 2012 3:12 pm
Whilst the geothermal idea is good, the practicalities pose some “challenges”
1. a project of this size needs to be funded by government but led by engineers not politicians. To rely on the market to stump up the cash to do a job like this means the end user will be paying large bills to service the debt & shareholders returns on top of energy costs.
2. A few well placed demolition charges at the interconnection ends puts the lights out, how can you prevent that?? We cannot survive for very long with a blackout situation.
We can always rely on our glorious leaders wind follies, so nothing to worry about ….although I note that today the UK’s total stock of 3729 wind turbines are currently contributing 112MW - a massive 0.7% of demand …
.. I’m stocking up with candles.
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Ian Bennett | 13 Apr 2012 3:26 pm
'...to service the debt...' I don't see how public funding as opposed to private capital makes any difference, as governments have to borrow money to finance large projects anyway. I would agree, however, that it makes sense to remove the profit element, though, by carrying out the whole enterprise as a publicly owned project.
The wind power operators are perfectly aware of the fact that on calm days, turbines don't work. That is the whole point, do please keep up!
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Anonymous | 13 Apr 2012 3:43 pm
So once again the politicians are avoiding the decision, to our ultimate cost. Why put the UK ever more in the hands of an oversea source of power? Even if we have to import the primary "fuel", for goodness sake have the commonsense to build the power stations here and that means NOW. At least we will be in charge of their security. Scrap the HS2 and use the money to kick start the construction of new UK power stations. At least we will all benefit from that investment, rather than just saving a few minutes on a trip to nowhere.
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Robert Gregory-Smith | 13 Apr 2012 4:12 pm
Guard it well! 800 tons of copper per km would be very attractive to metal thieves!!
PS I'll buy copper futures if it goes ahead! World copper production already lags usage.
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Editor's comments | 13 Apr 2012 4:12 pm
If anywhere's safe from copper thieves, it's got to be the bottom of the North Atlantic, surely!
Anonymous | 13 Apr 2012 4:19 pm
Very interesting article; as we push towards renewables we need to be able to accommodate fluctuating generation a a European wide smart grid seems the most logical solution.
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Phil | 13 Apr 2012 4:56 pm
And then we have to pay what ever iceland demands or the lights go out, this idea is just as mad as letting a foreign company OWN British nuclear power stations, which only produce about 22% of demand anyway. Better idea, cancel HS2, which no one but the gravy train main contractors wants, turn every sewage works into a biogas generating power station, and get free organic fertiliser for British agriculture into the bargain, Electricite De France? (or iceland) no thanks!
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David Lynch | 13 Apr 2012 5:51 pm
Am I missing something or is it the DECC?
When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining and there is surplus electricity available it will be cheap. When it is calm and dark and energy demand peaks it will be expensive. No one is going to want to buy our surplus electricity if they have enough of their own already. No one is going to sell us cheap power if they can get more money for it elsewhere.
Intermittent renewable energy will only provide a secure supply if a. everyone has installed enough surplus capacity to be able to supply their own requirements and be able to supply the requirements of other countries when they are short of power (these other countries will in turn supply our needs when we are short) and b. we have interconnectors over a long enough distance so that wind failure doesn’t affect all parts of the shared super grid at the same time. It will mean that most of the time a lot of capacity is lying idle waiting for a need.
However there was considerable anxiety when it was revealed we only have a few days of gas in store during the winter. The idea of having zero seconds of electricity in store is not going to go down at all well.
I would have thought that working on controlling the demand for electricity so some of the peak demands can be lopped and developing storage technologies would be more secure than a massive integrated pan-European supply system. That and building a few nuclear power stations.
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S. Martin | 13 Apr 2012 6:13 pm
Why spend all this money, only to be dependent upon another country for our energy. Why not use our own geothermal capabilities with hydraulic pumping and generate our own capacity, it makes much more sense.
Large interconnectors are fine in theory, but are prone to attacks from everyone of the current and future groups springing up. How do we repair a cable in the middle of an ocean?
All it takes is one terrorist or anarchist group to wipe out a substantial quantity of our power, then there's the cost. Can we set the prices or will they become another world traded commodity sold to the highest bidder.
With such money floating around, surely it makes sense to generate our own electricity, become self sufficient, and sell it to Europe for profit. Much of the European supergrid appears to be the speculators vying to control the K, then Europe's then the worlds power.
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Graham Field | 14 Apr 2012 8:51 am
Whilst I can see some sense in a euro supergrid, we still need to invest in UK generating capacity. Any supergrid might then allow us to export power at times.
Tidal/current-flow generation is a must; guaranteed and regular, but we will still require some base generating capacity other than imported oil, gas and uranium.
Clean-burn coal would seem to be our goal, as we still sit on top of known coal reserves.
In addition we must develop more efficient technologies to make cost-effective use of the electricity we use.
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Anonymous | 14 Apr 2012 9:48 am
Icelandic geothermal electricity is low in scale, The huge hydro scheme contributes far more to the Aluminium smelters which are the main consumers. In addition geothermal has significant emissions of CO2 plus is a cause of acid rain. Published data suggests industrial electricity prices are on average no lower than the UK, though this may change.
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Geoffrey BruceGordon | 14 Apr 2012 12:55 pm
A few years ago I put forward to New Zealand Government we could use volcanoes under the ocean to power this county power system here, plus produce hydrogen for transportation sector using engineering at hand. It’s good to see England is looking along these lines. I do wonder if she could be drilling near to home first for geothermal power on land, else around her oceans.
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Erwinder Sanghera | 14 Apr 2012 6:26 pm
It is not clear whether these plans shall create worthwhile (engineering) employment in the UK. The plants shall be located in Iceland, so what job creation in the UK for that purpose? Whether it’s Geothermal or Fourth Generation Nuclear we shall be importing power and dependent on resources generated elsewhere; for that matter technology developed and manufactured overseas. No security of energy supply and no real job creation. What is commendable is that the UK’s government seems to be trying to introduce greater flexibility into the UK’s energy mix, attaining electricity from a fairly politically stable country and close neighbour; less the financial crises and collapse of government in Iceland. As opposed to over reliance on Russian gas, like the Germans. However, this project may well divert funds from developing home grown energy resources and a much needed greater emphasis on energy efficiency. Let’s hope in future the Icelanders continue to want to share their abundance of resources with us, if not there is always the cod...
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Archie Campbell | 16 Apr 2012 12:14 pm
If they're so ready to build undersea connections how about placing much of the new National Grid underwater or underground and thus avoiding massive overhead powerlines?
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