Distributing ENergy With Electron Beams (DENEB)

Submitted 3 years ago

In the US, areas with high potential for solar and wind power generation are in different regions than areas with high population density and high electricity consumption. In particular, the Southwest has high potential for solar generation but is located 3000 kilometers from the densely populated Northeast creating an a need for a long distance, high power (>10GW) scale energy transmission system. Conventional High Voltage DC transmission lines do not scale well to long distances and very high powers. As a solution, high energy (GeV) electron beams can transmit power with very low energy loss, and circulating electron beams with average powers > 10GW have been operated at SLAC and other labs. SLAC has done a preliminary study of using high energy electron beams for power transmission and the technology looks promising when compared with conventional HVDC for long distances and high powers. We are proposing a study to identify any required technology development along with improved cost estimates for comparison with HVDC systems.