Interconnection is becoming more and more widespread and the power networks are at the heart of the major global economic challenges.

The networks that deliver our energy are infrastructures that shape our environment, as our comfort and peace of mind depends, to a large extent, on their reliability. If they fail, society is paralyzed. They are therefore a prerequisite to progress and economic development. Consequently, a third of world investments for electricity distribution will go to the creation of new networks between now and 2030, in particular in developing countries. And the increase in the decentralized production of renewable energies will require the extension of existing networks.

Electricity, a vector for European integration

The strategic, political and economic dimension of electricity networks has become even more important over the last fifteen years. This is true in Europe, where the recent reconfiguration of electricity networks has been based on the political upheaval that brought an end to the splitting of the continent into two totally distinct political and electrical systems. The interconnection of Eastern European countries even preceded their political integration. Already in the post-war period, the creation of the UCTE (Union for the Coordination of Transmission of Electricity) to support interconnection between the different Western European grids was the first step of the political unification, even before the historical 1951 treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.

The increasing number of link nodes to reduce "bottlenecks" and "missing links" today provides Europe with one of the largest networks in the world, comprising four synchronous blocks supplying over 450 million people, with an annual consumption of over 2,500 billion kWh. This network is also connected to North Africa, via Spain, and will soon be connected to the Middle East via Tunisia and, before the end of the decade, to Asia Minor via Greece and Turkey. It is progressively becoming a veritable "Mediterranean power ring". Further East, Russia and its neighbors are pushing to get connected.

Africa penalized by its networks

Although Africa has sufficient resources for its low consumption, the electricity grid is fragmented into small parts. It is badly run, often in a state of disrepair, inefficient and, above all, particularly inadequate for the needs, and as a result its development is heavily penalized. Furthermore, energy planning has always been at state level. The initiative of the 14 members of the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) could be a sign of a healthy recognition of the situation. This initiative, which is supported by international investments, aims to increase the electricity supply (5,600 km, i.e. 3480 mi) of interconnections for an installed capacity of 10,000 MWe) by establishing the first sub-Saharan transborder cooperation.

Asynchronous frequencies in South America

The principle of Central American network unification was defined in 1997. Priority was given to infrastructures, but harmonization of procedures and regulations proved to be complex and progressed slowly. The goal is to improve the supply of reliable electricity to some 34 million people. To achieve this, a 230-kV line will be deployed across more than 1,800 km (1,118 mi), thanks to combined public and private investments.

Further south, Latin America has relatively poorly integrated regional networks, due to differences of frequency (50 and 60 Hz) and the energy imbalance resulting from the two "giants" Argentina and especially Brazil, which is the leading electricity consumer and producer in the region. In the face of electricity demand that grows 3% per year, Brazil is hindered by a totally inadequate network. Line losses are among the highest on the planet, at almost 16% of domestic energy production as a result of the characteristic long distances, distance from hydraulic resources, poor maintenance and illegal connections. In both of these countries, liberalization of electricity markets has not been accompanied by an appropriate reinforcement of the network infrastructures and foreign investors have been hit by costly setbacks.

North America: a risky integration

The electricity transmission and distribution market of the world's leading economic area is certainly one of the planet's most integrated, and the complementarity of the generation methods is a very useful strength, with Canadian hydroelectricity in summer and US coal in winter. But this inter-dependency has also highlighted the risk of cross-border blackouts. In fact, excessive deregulation in the US has quite simply paralyzed the electricity network on several occasions and exposed its weaknesses. In this respect, the PJM network in the Northeastern US, which supplies 25 million customers in seven states and which is interconnected with the Canadian province of Ontario, is emblematic. PJM has no less than 250 member companies (electricity producers, transmitters and distributors), covers eight regulatory districts and transmits the production of 625 power plants using various types of fuel. And it is in exactly this region that the regional blackout of August 2003 started.

The great leap forward of the Chinese network

"Developing" Asia is dominated by India and China, a country that is in itself representative of the problems faced by the entire region. In 2005, China has an installed capacity of 445,000 MWe and foresees the addition of another 860,000 MWe by 2030 to support spectacular economic development (9.5% growth in 2004). But its network infrastructures are not up to the task and a great leap forward is indispensable, given the extent of power shortages and the frequency of power outages affecting large cities. Today, there are seven non-connected inter-province networks and five non-connected regional networks, with the result that certain regions have surpluses that they cannot transfer to areas in need. China is determined to modernize its aging infrastructures and has started deploying its first 500-kilovolt national network by linking three major regional networks–eastern China, central China and Sichuan-Chongqing in the west–around the gigantic Three Gorges dam project which will provide an installed capacity of 18.2 million kWe when completed, i.e. 10% of the total Chinese capacity.