‘Mediterranean electrical super-grid is possible soon’
There is a real possibility of creating a circuitous electrical super-grid, that begins in Spain, heads eastward through northern Africa and back toward Europe through the eastern Mediterranean nations via Turkey, in the foreseeable future, according to experts who discussed the vision at a conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
The conference, hosted by Israel’s branch of CIGRE: International Council on Large Electric Systems, featured lead researchers and innovators from all over the world to speak about different techniques of transmitting power within, and among, their countries.
Establishing an interconnected grid throughout the Mediterranean basin is the work of a Paris-based organization called Medgrid, which is pushing for the continuation of a project called MEDRING, started quite some time ago, which would successfully link the countries electrically, thereby reducing individual infrastructural demands and boosting all of these nation’s economies.
Members of the private joint venture currently include 20 European Union and southeast Mediterranean companies, among which include Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Syria – but not yet Israel due to its electrical isolation.
‘The objective of Medgrid is to design the Mediterranean interconnection grid with a time target that is about 2020-2025, which is a bit near, in comparison with DESERTEC, which is 2050,’ said Jean Kowal, executive vice president of Medgrid and former secretary general of CIGRE-France, referring to a campaign that aims to harness large amounts of desert light on a high voltage supergrid by 2050.
Creating the Medgrid would complement European Union objectives for 2020, which include a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide compared to 1990 levels, a 20% gain in energy efficiency, and ensuring that 20% of energy consumption comes from renewable, according to Kowal.