> For the same reason, the enthusiasm for the idea of installing solar plants in north africa and exporting power over interconnectors to Europe is gone. It's cheaper to install twice as many panels in a field in cloudy northern Europe (where capacity factors are half of what they would be in the Sahara) than deal with the costs and complexity of underwater interconnectors and transmission system upgrades.
I don't know about that, because long-range transmission significantly reduces the intermittency, even for the same longitude. It's not just about smoothing out the curve of solar production, demand patterns (due to weather, industry, behavior) will also have variations from place-to-place and these allow opportunities for power export.
Some places will have more dispatchable and expensive power plants than others, which also creates an export opportunity so that power is exported so that one country can burn less fuel. However, I admit this argument is slightly undercut by the question "can't we just build solar panels in the country with dispatchable dirty power?" True, but there's also a connection to wind power which is super local and random.
In general, yes, more interconnection and better transmission can only be good.
But in the specific example I gave, the finances just don't work. Underwater HDVC is just too expensive and panels are too cheap - even with the value of the uncorrelated intermittency.
And even if the numbers could be made work financially, I can't see European countries lining up to become dependent on fixed infrastructure in politically unaligned and/or unstable countries like Algeria or Libya - especially given recent experience with Russia. Securitywise, Nord Stream has shown that underwater infrastructure is vulnerable to attack and difficult to protect/guard.
Winter solar in Northern Europe, when it produces 10-15% of summer, is not displacing the winter heating load supplied by fossil fuels. North African solar could do that.
I don't know about that, because long-range transmission significantly reduces the intermittency, even for the same longitude. It's not just about smoothing out the curve of solar production, demand patterns (due to weather, industry, behavior) will also have variations from place-to-place and these allow opportunities for power export.
Some places will have more dispatchable and expensive power plants than others, which also creates an export opportunity so that power is exported so that one country can burn less fuel. However, I admit this argument is slightly undercut by the question "can't we just build solar panels in the country with dispatchable dirty power?" True, but there's also a connection to wind power which is super local and random.