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Just a few days in the past, non-public firms in India and Saudi Arabia signed over two dozen agreements on all kinds of topics. This text will deal with the constructing of a Excessive Voltage Direct Present (HVDC) undersea line which might enable energy to be transmitted in each instructions between the 2 international locations, and past (if extra traces are constructed past these international locations). That is a part of a higher initiative for the international locations of the area to work extra carefully to advance their economies. This text describes the settlement as being between the governments as a substitute of between the non-public firms. I’m unsure which is correct, however both method, they plan to work collectively.

A good friend on X highlighted this information to me and requested me to put in writing an article on it.

Observers are lacking this vital element within the India-MiddleEast-Europe hall.
There might be an underneath sea HVDC energy hyperlink between Indian and Saudi Arabian energy grids to share renewable energy.
Saudis would change into the Photo voltaic Energy champions of the longer term.#solarenergy… pic.twitter.com/j037iIk9pT

— 𒀭Dr In a position Lawrence MD DM🦉周天堂🌻 (@abledoc) September 13, 2023

We’ve written fairly a bit about how HVDC transmission traces might assist transfer energy from one area to a different, considerably like how oil or fuel pipelines do. Listed here are a couple of key factors to think about:

1. A distinction is that they transmit energy in actual time versus gas that may later be used to provide electrical energy or warmth houses.
2. These transmission traces might vastly assist with certainly one of photo voltaic vitality’s two largest points:
   • The solar doesn’t shine at night time, so it’s a must to both retailer vitality from the daytime (usually in a battery), use an alternate supply, scale back nighttime demand, or get electrical energy from someplace the solar is shining. For India and Saudi Arabia, that are 2.5 time zones away from one another in response to this time zone map, this could enable India to make use of Saudi solar energy a couple of hours after the solar goes down within the night and Saudi Arabia to make use of Indian solar energy a couple of hours earlier than dawn. This turns into much more helpful whether it is prolonged westward 3 time zones to Morocco and eastward 4.5 time zones to Australia, for a complete span of 10 hours.
   • In excessive latitudes, the solar shines rather a lot much less within the winter than in the summertime. This Saudi/India line by itself received’t assist with this drawback, however different initiatives might present electrical energy to excessive latitudes of their winter.
3. A danger we should always think about is that HVDC transmission can be topic to sabotage as oil and fuel pipelines are in a time of struggle. That is one view of what occurred to the Nord Stream pipeline which will or is probably not the true story, however what we are able to assume is somebody took it out — it wasn’t an earthquake or hurricane. I nonetheless assume this collaboration will change into a useful software to scale back the usage of fossil fuels, although. Fossil fuels are very prone to disruptions throughout wars, and never simply by sabotage of pipelines — naval blockades can forestall the transport of oil, pure fuel, and coal.

Conclusion

This is a vital turning level exhibiting that Saudi Arabia, a rustic that has made an enormous amount of cash on fossil fuels, realizes that the world is altering. The nation’s management is aware of that renewable vitality is getting steadily cheaper as fossil fuels get costlier (not steadily, however in unstable value swings). In addition they know that their nation and different international locations have slowly determined to scale back air pollution and carbon emissions. Individually, India has lengthy used fossil fuels to energy its speedy financial development, however it’s beginning to perceive the identical two forces — that the economics rising favor renewables and the consequences of air pollution and carbon have gotten more and more unpopular.

Disclosure: I’m a shareholder in Tesla [TSLA], BYD [BYDDY], Nio [NIO], XPeng [XPEV], Hertz [HTZ], and a number of other ARK ETFs. However I supply no funding recommendation of any type right here.