That’s not a reason not to do something, that’s just a reason something’s hard. If it’s too costly to run wire that’s one thing, but singling Hawaii out is kinda weird. I could definitely see a world where cabling Hawaii up would be worth it. A one time cost for laying cable vs the current shipping of oil (or god forbid a pipeline)…
Electricity loss via heat over length of wire. I used Hawaii as an example of somewhere so isolated it’s likely prohibitively expensive to transfer electricity over a wire from either mainland regardless of how cheap the wires are. It’s likely much more efficient to operate it on its own renewable focused grid. Offshore wind between the islands, solar roofing, and battery banks.
A national grid or a continental grid isn’t great because maybe Buenos Aires needs electricity produced in Toronto, it’s great because southern mexico is connected to as much electricity produced as locally as possible, but it can in an emergency reach out to just as far as it needs to and that weight can ripple out and dissipate without too much issues or unnecessary hard stops.
Hvdc and a truly global grid brings substantial changes in what you’re saying. With solar energy being extremely cheap, and storage being relatively expensive, even if you have substantial transmission losses, it can be worthwhile to transmit that solar energy. Would a long undersea cable be more effective than huge battery banks? Hard to tell but I don’t think it’s something I’d write off without hard numbers, it’s likely closer than you think
Why not Hawaii?
Extreme geological isolation
That’s not a reason not to do something, that’s just a reason something’s hard. If it’s too costly to run wire that’s one thing, but singling Hawaii out is kinda weird. I could definitely see a world where cabling Hawaii up would be worth it. A one time cost for laying cable vs the current shipping of oil (or god forbid a pipeline)…
Electricity loss via heat over length of wire. I used Hawaii as an example of somewhere so isolated it’s likely prohibitively expensive to transfer electricity over a wire from either mainland regardless of how cheap the wires are. It’s likely much more efficient to operate it on its own renewable focused grid. Offshore wind between the islands, solar roofing, and battery banks.
A national grid or a continental grid isn’t great because maybe Buenos Aires needs electricity produced in Toronto, it’s great because southern mexico is connected to as much electricity produced as locally as possible, but it can in an emergency reach out to just as far as it needs to and that weight can ripple out and dissipate without too much issues or unnecessary hard stops.
Hvdc and a truly global grid brings substantial changes in what you’re saying. With solar energy being extremely cheap, and storage being relatively expensive, even if you have substantial transmission losses, it can be worthwhile to transmit that solar energy. Would a long undersea cable be more effective than huge battery banks? Hard to tell but I don’t think it’s something I’d write off without hard numbers, it’s likely closer than you think