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Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series Oligarchy and the Emergence of Intercontinental Electricity Networks

I keep seeing the same idea pop up in energy conversations, usually said quietly, like it’s impolite.

That the future grid is not just national anymore. It’s regional, then continental, then… basically intercontinental. Power lines that don’t care about borders the way politicians do. HVDC corridors under oceans. Desert solar shipped as electrons. Wind from one time zone smoothing out demand in another.

And the uncomfortable follow up.

If electricity becomes something you can move across the planet like LNG or oil, who controls the chokepoints?

This is where the oligarch conversation shows up, even if people dress it up with softer words like “strategic investors” or “infrastructure stakeholders” or “network operators.” In this entry of the Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series, I want to talk about oligarchy as a pattern of control. Not just rich individuals. A system where a small set of actors can shape outcomes because they sit on key assets, key permits, key relationships, key bottlenecks.

And then tie that to something that, on paper, sounds boring and technical.

Intercontinental electricity networks.

They are not boring. They are one of the cleanest ways to understand how power, money, and engineering braid together.

The grid is turning into geopolitics (again)

Electricity used to be local. A power plant near a city. A utility. A regulator. Pretty contained.

Then we built bigger interconnections. National grids. Synchronized zones. Cross border links. Europe’s market coupling. Nordic hydropower balancing neighbors. Interties between the US and Canada. Russia and its neighbors. China’s internal ultra high voltage build out.

Now the next step is creeping in.

Not “one world grid” overnight. More like a chain of profitable links that slowly stitches regions together. The logic is simple:

Renewable energy is unevenly distributed.
Demand is unevenly distributed.
Weather is unevenly distributed.
Time zones are unevenly distributed.

So if you can move electricity far enough, you can arbitrage all of that. You can sell surplus. You can smooth peaks. You can reduce curtailment. You can backstop reliability without building as many local peaker plants.

Technically, HVDC is the enabling tool. It moves bulk power over long distances with lower losses than HVAC, and it can connect asynchronous grids. Undersea cables make it even more interesting because oceans stop being barriers and start being routes.

Economically, it looks like infrastructure. Long lived. Regulated returns sometimes. A big upfront cost, then decades of cashflow.

Politically, it looks like interdependence. Which is nice until it isn’t.

And socially, it looks like a new class of “must not fail” assets. If a single cable becomes a meaningful percentage of supply, you have a vulnerability. If a handful of investors can threaten to slow down expansion, you have leverage.

That’s where oligarchy stops being a history term and starts being a lens.

What “oligarchy” means in grid terms

When people hear “oligarch,” they picture yachts, private jets, and an absurd house on a coastline. Fine. That exists.

But in energy systems, oligarchy is often quieter. It’s embedded. It shows up as:

Control of interconnection queues and permitting pathways
Ownership stakes in transmission developers, cable manufacturing, converter stations
Influence over regulators, market rules, and tariff structures
The ability to delay projects, accelerate projects, or reshape projects

And it doesn’t have to be one villain. It can be a cluster of aligned incentives. Funds, conglomerates, politically connected families, state adjacent corporations, and the consultants and legal teams orbiting them.

The grid is especially prone to this because it is:

Capital intensive
Permission intensive
Complex enough to hide games inside technicalities
Essential enough that governments will compromise to “keep the lights on”

In other words, it’s a perfect arena for concentrated power.

Intercontinental links take all of that and crank it up. You add more jurisdictions, more regulators, more treaty like negotiations, more security concerns, more ways to stall.

So yes, the emergence of intercontinental electricity networks is an engineering story. But it’s also a story about who becomes indispensable.

Why intercontinental networks are suddenly realistic

There’s a reason this topic feels less sci fi than it did a decade ago.

A few things changed at once.

First, renewables got cheap. Not “competitive in a pilot project” cheap. Structurally cheap in many locations. Solar in high irradiance regions. Onshore wind in strong corridors. Offshore wind scaling, slowly, painfully, but scaling.

Second, electrification is rising. Transport, heating, industry, data centers. Demand is going up in a way that makes supply security more valuable.

Third, HVDC technology matured. Higher capacities. Longer cable runs. More vendors. Better control systems. Still expensive, still hard, but no longer exotic.

Fourth, markets learned how to trade electricity more fluidly across borders. Not perfectly. Sometimes not fairly. But the commercial plumbing improved.

So now the business case is not insane. It’s just… complicated. And those complications are exactly where concentrated influence thrives.

The intercontinental grid as a map of chokepoints

If you’re trying to understand oligarchic dynamics, stop thinking about generation first.

Think about chokepoints.

Generation is easier to diversify. You can build solar in many places. Wind too. Even nuclear, in theory, though the timeline is brutal.

Transmission chokepoints are harder. There are only so many viable routes. Only so many landing sites for undersea cables. Only so many grid nodes that can absorb gigawatts without massive upgrades. Only so many factories that can make HVDC cables at scale. Only so many teams that can permit and build converter stations reliably.

This is where intercontinental networks look less like “more competition” and more like “new scarcity.”

Scarcity is where oligarchic structures love to form.

A developer with a prime corridor can sit on it. A supplier with manufacturing capacity can raise prices. A consortium with the right political relationships can get approvals while others get stuck. A port with specialized handling capabilities can become a bottleneck. A landowner coalition can extract rents.

And because these projects are so big, governments often negotiate rather than confront. They want it built. They want it soon. They want to claim climate progress. They will cut deals.

Not always corrupt deals. Sometimes just pragmatic ones. But pragmatism can still concentrate power.

Follow the money, but also follow the warranties

One thing I find interesting is how “infrastructure ownership” has evolved.

It’s not only the person who owns the asset. It’s who controls:

EPC contracts
O&M contracts
Warranty terms
Grid code compliance sign offs
Insurance and risk modeling
Spare parts supply chains

If a cable fails, who can fix it. How fast. With what vessel. Under what legal permissions. With what replacement parts.

Those details decide whether an intercontinental link is a reliable backbone or a fragile political hostage.

This is where oligarchy can become quasi technical. The public sees a line on a map. Behind that line are layers of dependency. A handful of firms, or a handful of investors behind firms, can become unavoidable.

And when something is unavoidable, pricing power appears. So does political power.

Energy independence, rebranded

There’s a big argument against intercontinental electricity networks that goes like this:

“We’ll trade one dependence for another. We’ll import electrons instead of gas.”

That can be true. But it doesn’t have to be. Interdependence can reduce risk if it’s diversified. Like having multiple suppliers, multiple routes, multiple technologies.

The problem is that these projects rarely start diversified. They start as flagship links. One cable. One corridor. One heroic announcement.

A single link creates a single point of failure. It also creates a single point of leverage.

Oligarchic actors understand this intuitively. They don’t need to “control everything.” They just need to control enough that everyone else has to negotiate.

So the real question becomes: are we building intercontinental networks as plural systems, or as monopolized corridors.

And honestly, the early signs can go either way.

The climate case is strong. That’s why the governance has to be stronger.

It’s important to say this plainly.

Intercontinental electricity networks could be genuinely good for decarbonization.

They can:

Reduce curtailment of renewables
Allow high quality resource regions to serve demand centers
Provide balancing across weather systems and time zones
Potentially reduce total system costs if planned well

There’s a real, clean argument here. It’s not just a vanity project.

But climate urgency is also a classic excuse for shortcuts. For “temporary” governance exceptions that become permanent. For rushed procurement. For concentrating decision making in small circles because “we don’t have time.”

This is the exact environment where oligarchic structures grow legs.

So the pro climate position is not to reject big grids. It’s to demand better rules around them.

What better rules actually look like (not slogans)

When people say “we need transparency,” I always want to ask. Transparency of what. To whom. With what enforcement.

For intercontinental electricity networks, the governance checklist is pretty specific:

Open access and non discriminatory capacity allocation
If one actor can reserve capacity indefinitely, you’ve basically created a private toll road on a public necessity.
Clear beneficial ownership disclosure
Not just the project company name. The real owners. The control rights. The side agreements.
Competitive procurement for major components where possible
HVDC is concentrated in vendors already, but that’s not an excuse to lock in sweetheart terms without scrutiny.
Independent regulator coordination across borders
If regulators don’t coordinate, investors will forum shop for the weakest rules.
Security and resilience standards built in from day one
Physical security, cyber security, repair logistics, redundancy planning. Not after an incident.
Community and land rights that are not performative
Transmission fights often start locally. If locals feel steamrolled, projects stall and then only the most connected players can push them through.
Anti corruption enforcement that understands infrastructure
This is not petty bribery. This is influence via consultants, revolving doors, opaque SPVs, and “strategic partnerships.”

That list is not glamorous. But it’s the difference between a network that serves the public and a network that becomes a private empire.

The quiet way oligarchy forms: the “indispensable builder”

A pattern I keep noticing in big infrastructure is what I call the indispensable builder effect.

A few firms or consortia build the first projects. They accumulate expertise, relationships, and a track record. Governments then prefer them for the next project because risk feels lower. Banks prefer them too. Insurance prefers them. The ecosystem starts selecting for incumbency.

Soon, the market becomes less contestable. New entrants can’t get finance without experience. They can’t get experience without projects. They can’t get projects without finance.

This is not illegal. It’s just how concentrated capability creates concentrated power.

And if those incumbents are tied to oligarchic capital, or politically embedded families, or state aligned interests, the line between “competent infrastructure developer” and “systemic gatekeeper” gets blurry fast.

Intercontinental networks, because of their scale, supercharge this dynamic.

So what happens next

I don’t think we wake up one day and find a single intercontinental grid controlled by a handful of people. Reality is messier. Countries resist. Regions argue. Projects get delayed. Cables get opposed. Costs rise. Elections happen. Someone changes their mind.

But I do think we are moving into an era where electricity trade expands beyond what most policy frameworks were designed for. And in that gap, concentrated actors will do what concentrated actors always do.

They will position themselves at junction points.

And once they are there, they will call it “stability” when it benefits them, and “market disruption” when someone tries to compete.

This is why the Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series keeps coming back to infrastructure. It is not because infrastructure is inherently corrupt. It’s because infrastructure is inherently powerful. It touches everything else.

If intercontinental electricity networks become real at scale, they will reshape diplomacy, industrial strategy, and even domestic politics. Cheap imported power can undercut local generators. Export corridors can enrich certain regions and bypass others. Grid fees can become a new tax. Reliability incidents can become national crises.

And through all of that, the actors who control the links, the permits, the repair ships, the converter stations, the market rules, they will have a seat at every table. Whether they were elected or not.

Closing thought

Intercontinental electricity networks are probably coming, in some form. Not because it’s trendy, but because the math of renewables and electrification keeps pushing us there.

The real question is not “can we build them.”

It’s who gets to own the bridge, who writes the toll policy, and what happens when the bridge becomes essential.

If we don’t treat governance as part of the engineering, we’ll end up building a cleaner grid that still runs on the oldest fuel there is.

Concentrated power.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is the concept of intercontinental electricity networks and why is it gaining attention?

Intercontinental electricity networks refer to power grids that extend beyond national borders, connecting regions continentally and even intercontinentally through technologies like HVDC corridors under oceans. This concept is gaining attention because it allows for the efficient transfer of renewable energy across diverse geographic locations, smoothing demand peaks and enabling surplus energy sales, thus enhancing grid reliability and sustainability.

How does oligarchy manifest in the control of intercontinental electricity grids?

Oligarchy in electricity grids emerges as a pattern where a small group of actors hold significant control over key assets such as interconnection permits, transmission infrastructure, and influence over regulatory frameworks. This concentrated power can shape project timelines, market rules, and infrastructure expansion, creating chokepoints that affect the broader energy system's development and security.

Why are intercontinental electricity networks considered both an engineering challenge and a geopolitical issue?

While technically enabled by advancements like high voltage direct current (HVDC) technology and undersea cables, intercontinental electricity networks involve complex negotiations across multiple jurisdictions, regulators, and security concerns. This intertwining of engineering with political interdependence makes these networks a focal point for geopolitical dynamics and power struggles among various stakeholders.

What factors have made the development of intercontinental electricity networks more feasible recently?

Several factors contribute to the feasibility of these networks today: significant cost reductions in renewable energy technologies like solar and wind; rising electrification demands from transportation, heating, and industry; maturation of HVDC technology enabling higher capacity and longer cable runs; and improved cross-border electricity market trading mechanisms. Together, these create a viable business case despite inherent complexities.

What risks arise from having critical intercontinental transmission assets controlled by a few investors or entities?

When critical transmission assets become 'must not fail' components supplying large portions of power, their control by a limited number of investors introduces vulnerabilities. These entities can leverage their position to delay or accelerate projects according to their interests, potentially threatening supply security, slowing infrastructure expansion, or influencing regulatory outcomes to their advantage.

How do uneven distributions of renewable resources and demand influence the push for regional to intercontinental grids?

Renewable energy resources like solar and wind are unevenly distributed geographically, as are electricity demand patterns influenced by time zones and weather variability. Interconnecting grids regionally or continentally allows surplus renewable energy generated in one area to be transmitted where demand is higher or conditions are less favorable locally. This arbitrage improves overall system efficiency, reduces curtailment, smooths demand peaks, and enhances reliability without relying solely on local generation.