Invited Paper IPF-TuM5
Offshore Sustainable Electricity Supply Systems: The POSEIDON Vision

Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 9:20 am, Room 602/603

Seas and oceans cover over 70% of the earth's surface. They already play a crucial role in the global energy supply: a considerable part of our oil and natural gas is extracted off shore, and will be in the future. But at sea, also large potentials of renewable energy sources can be harvested, like wind, wave, tidal and osmotic energy. By offering space, abundant energy resources, and the opportunity for geological sequestration of carbon dioxide, the seas offer a huge opportunity to meet the world's growing energy demand in a sustainable way. The POSEIDON vision is a seaway to harvest these energy resources and to create a sustainable electricity supply system. The heart of the concept is the construction of an off shore electricity transmission grid. This grid connects major onshore demand regions with each other, and with off shore fossil and renewable electricity production and storage technologies. In combination with geological sequestration of carbon dioxide (including enhanced oil or gas recovery), a carbon free electricity supply could be attained. The POSEIDON vision emphasizes the importance of an integrated system approach. Production, conversion and transformation, transmission and distribution, storage and final energy demand are not separate elements, but must be considered from a system perspective. Also changes over time should be taken into account. POSEDION builds on current infrastructure, ensures access to sources, balances load and demand, and enables the incorporation of new emerging off shore technologies. By combining these technologies and marine resources, the seas offer the opportunities to build a truly sustainable energy system: cheap, reliable and sustainable. POSEIDON is an initiative of Econcern, the sustainable energy solution provider. Europe is seen as an excellent region to prove the concept. The North Sea region will be discussed as an example, as well as the key technologies that are expected to form the basis of this concept: off shore wind and wave energy, high-voltage electricity transmission technologies, and zero emission power plants. Developing POSEIDON-like systems asks for venturous project developers and other companies, inventive policy and decision makers, and creative researchers. They all can contribute to building this new, truly sustainable perspective.