zlacker

Spain is adjacent to France, just like Germany; not sure it's farther away :P

But the way these networks work, you can often build up the interconnects where there's a pricing/availability disparity, and pretty soon you have a vast interconnect. Because if Germany's grid pricing benefits from relatively unconstrained interconnection with France, there's going to be a pricing disparity at Germany's other borders. Of course, grid borders don't necessarily reflect national borders, and national interconnection projects have to happen too.

That said, the top 5 countries by peak load in wikipedia are France, Germany, UK, Italy, and Spain, which are all either France or neighbors of France.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta...

>>toast0+(OP)
Please re-read my comment. France's relatively small renewable fleet flooding their home market is a solution in search of a problem. If the goal is to decarbonize Germany in times of low renewable production inside Germany then we need interconnects between Germany and places high in renewables as well that are farther away from Germany than France. This is why Norway and Spain are good candidates.

France will have enough trouble rebuilding its declining nuclear fleet in the coming decades for their own energy needs, so any infrastructure that bets on France being able to supply neighbors as well will have a quick expiration. France is actually importing a lot of renewables in winter, because they heat homes with old electric heating (i.e. no heat pumps) and bad insulation that looses much more heat than homes in other countries and their nuclear supply can't cope with that.

In all likelyhood what will do the electricity decarbonization trick in Germany is threefold: more electricity transmission inside the country and with other renewable-heavy countries, continued quick buildout of renewables in Germany and a bit of battery storage, outlawing of coal and lignite in <10 years. The renewable gaps in the medium term will be fewer and shorter and will be filled with natural gas plants which are easy and cheap to build, even when they are just kept in standby most of the time. In the long term they will be made obsolete by even more lines and battery storage. Imported nuclear will likely play no relevant role at any stage. Like anything every bit helps a bit, but it won't change anything in the grand scale.

We already have a non-negligable amount of battery storage in German homes, but currently the incentives are laid out so that they will power these homes at night only. I believe we are loosing out on a bit of efficiency by not using it yet to feed back into the grid when needed. This could be enabled by smart meters and dynamic pricing in the future. It would also allow better to move household electricity demand into the times when renewables are most abundant.