North American Supergrid: Transforming Electricity Transmission

North American Supergrid: Transforming Electricity Transmission is an initiative of the nonprofit Climate Institute that contemplates a North American Supergrid, or a largely underground, nationwide HVDC network that would extend across the lower 48 states, improving national security and enabling higher penetrations of cost-effective renewable energy. The study also examines the technical and engineering challenges with implementing a largely underground HVDC system, estimating such a network would create hundreds of thousands of jobs over several decades. Approximately two-thirds of the HVDC cable links in the proposed system can feasibly be placed underground along existing rights of way, greatly reducing the time and effort needed to move forward with permitting and construction, according to the report. Transmission investments necessary to construct the Supergrid over a 30-year time frame are estimated to total roughly under $500 billion, and would assist in reducing “business as usual” 2040 power sector sulfur dioxide and particulate matter emissions by a factor of approximately 7.

North American Supergrid: Transforming Electricity Transmission