In 2011, the HVDC cable toward the Spanish mainland will go into service and allow power exchange with the Spanish mainland. The terminal of the line is under construction at Santa Ponsa on Mallorca. Where exactly? Has someone pictures?
Why was this link not already realized decades ago, as Mallorca has a large power demand. Between Sardinia and the Italian mainland, there is since 1966 a HVDC powerline connection!

I don't know the exact reasons, but the cable will only provide up to 20% of the energy demand of Mallorca and Menorca, so it's not that providential for the huge summetime demand. Between the two islands there's a cable installed decades ago. The cable between the Iberian peninsula and the Balearics will be one of the deepest in the world. Maybe that was a handicap before.

On the other hand a new gasoduct has just been built too and the gas will be used to generate electricity directly in Mallorca. Right now is already being used to provide gas to final users.

Santa Ponsa is a small beach, so major works will take place this winter. I think on the west side of the beach, it's not that big anyway you'll find it.

Hi Obelixx,

All the info you need:
http://dgener.caib.es/www/user/portalenergia/pdse/docs/memoria/Capitol4.pdf
http://www.ree.es/sala_prensa/web/inc/fichero.aspx?ruta=revista/pdf&fichero=otln1n7a3d40.pdf

The HVDC cable has been part of a political controversial, where the energy system was at debate. There's been quite a lot of opposition to the HVDC, mainly because it's not a very efficient way to get energy to the island and because power demand should be contained.

From a technichal point of view, I would say that the HVDC is a huge waste of money. It's much more expensive than building a 400 MW combined cycle power station (*)... and the fact is that this power station has already been built (Ca's Tresorer), so there's no need of new power supply capacity.

But, of course, there's a great not in my backyard culture in this island... so it might be more acceptable to people to lay some cables under the sea, than to build a new power station.

The cable could be interesting if there was a bi-directional power transfer, based on differences of supply and demand on both terminals of the cable. But the demand variations are more or less the same, since on both sides there's the same economic model (brick & beach tourism). And on both sides there's a similar generation structure: coal & combined cycle, with few or no renewables.


(*) HVDC connection:

Investment: 2x200 MW @ 375 M€ + environmental correction measures + budget deviations
O&M: Same at generation facilities + cable O&M + enormous energy losses

However the cable embetters the realiability of power supply. We should not forget, that there are other similiar systems in work partly since decades! These are
* HVDC Gotland since 1954
* HVDC France-UK since 1959
* HVDC Corse/Sardinia since 1966
* HVDC Vancouver-Island since 1971
* HVDC Jeju since 1996

yep, of course it's a very interesting technology... specially if we want to get 100% renewable, so that the excess in supply can be sent from Denmark to Spain, if needed. But this is a political decission, not a technichal one.

If Mallorca and the spanish coast were on the way to a model with a high share of renewables, it would make much more sense to link the balearic grid with the spanish one, since the project could benefit from extreme price differences on both terminals.

Sadly, it's not the case.


EDIT: The stability of the balearic grid is quite good, specially if we analize supply. Major failures in the last years come mainly from problems in transforming substations -where a huge investment is being done-.

Of course, more and more supply facilities improve the security of supply, and HVDC systems offer a dramaticaly better stabilization than other technologies. But however, I still don't see it cost-efficient. Ca's Tresorer has already been built and demand won't increase much in comming years (the crisis is being very hard)

This demand can stay depressed even longer if some investment is done in energy efficiency & thermal renewables.

The only way to adjust supply with demand would be shutting down Es Murterar power station. And paying a lot for increased supply security.