Electricity, and more generally energy policy, have, for most of the past century been of interest to governments and politicians. Not only does energy provide taxable revenues for finance ministers, but a lack of energy, or the interruption in the supply of energy, can cause ministers many sleepless nights. The seemingly inexorable rise in oil and gas prices, the decline in the abundance of fossil fuels, and the impacts of climate change, have all combined to bring electricity, and its supply, firmly back into the Irish, and European, political arena. To improve security of supply across the European Union, the EU is determined to open the Union's electricity markets to competition. At the same time, EU member states are all committed to delivering very significant amounts of low carbon electricity. The delivery of this power will require an integrated grid network to take renewable electricity from generating stations in Ireland and the UK to consumers on the continent. Supergrid is the concept that will see a meshed grid of high voltage DC transmission routing power through Supernodes to markets across the EU. In 2010, a group of leading global companies joined forces to create the Friends of Supergrid to provide the technical, regulatory and supply chain solutions to policy makers struggling with the challenges of supply and demand in a low carbon world.
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