Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “HVDC Transmission Market – Forecasts to 2018” report to their offering.
The ever increasing demand of energy, with long distance between generation and consumption centers, is poised to change the nature of transmission and distribution. Ironically HDVC seems to be the future energy transmission option. The growing need of cable based on transmission instead of overhead lines for transporting power over the long distance due to environmental constraint. The energy generation from the renewable sources like offshore wind farms and remote located solar panel, following an exponential growth trajectory in the market. It is believed the trend will continue, consequently this will increase the transmission distance.
HVDC grid is required to facilitate the long distance transmission of power generated from hydelplants, the integration of offshore wind power, the development of solar panel, and the interconnection of power networks. The deployment of HVDC has led to an increasing number of interconnections across the globe which further helps to optimize power networks. With the interconnection of weak AC grid with HVDC strengthens the power capacity and increases the reliability of the power grid.
The wind industry continues to diversify across the globe, with significant activity in South America, Africa and Asia. Wind industry has experienced a rapid growth in new offshore wind farms mainly in Europe as they aim to achieve 20% of the power generated through renewable resource this will opens space of HVDC grid to transmit power from offshore to mainland. Primarily it acts as a facilitator for exchange and trading of power among the region. The offshore grid will also allow the aggregation and dispatch of power from offshore wind farms from different regions, resulting in power generation profiles of lower variability. The development in power grid allows efficient energy trading among the nation.
The increasing wind farms is a main driving factor for the adoption of HVDC market, APAC region holds the largest share in HVDC market due to high power demand and the high investment on developing power infrastructure in countries like India and China. With envision of interconnecting networks of power grid between European nations to harness the renewable source led high growth of HVDC in Europe market. High investment has made in terms of the power reliability and upgrading the ageing infrastructure led the growth of HVDC in Americas region. Also, reducing Co2 emission from the power generation plant will further boost the HVDC grid adoption.
Few of the major companies profiled in this report are ABB (Switzerland), Alstom (France), General Electric (U.S.), Hitachi Ltd. (Japan), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan), Siemens (Germany), and Toshiba (Japan).
Press release, February 5, 2014; Image: britnet