Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series on The Emergence of Global Supergrids

I keep seeing the same pattern in big infrastructure stories.

First, it sounds like a nerdy engineering upgrade. New lines, new converters, better control systems. Stuff that feels incremental.

Then you zoom out and realize it is actually a power shift. Not a metaphor. Real power. Who can sell, who can buy, who gets stability, who gets leverage. Who gets to say no.

That is the lens I want to use for this piece in the Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series, because the idea of global supergrids is starting to move from a conference slide to something you can almost touch. Almost. And when it becomes real, it is going to rearrange energy markets the way shipping containers rearranged global trade.

Not overnight. But faster than people expect.

What even is a global supergrid

At the simplest level, a supergrid is just a very large, very high capacity electricity network that connects regions that used to be separate.

The “global” part is where it gets spicy. It implies linking countries, time zones, even continents. Think:

• North Sea wind feeding industry in Central Europe
• Solar in North Africa flowing north into Europe
• Hydro in Scandinavia balancing spikes in demand elsewhere
• Eventually, intercontinental links. The kind that turn “national grid” into “node on a network”

Most serious supergrid talk centers on HVDC (high voltage direct current) because it can move power long distances with lower losses and better control. AC grids are great locally, but across long distances they get messy. HVDC is like a dedicated highway.

And yes, this is already happening in pieces. China built enormous HVDC corridors. Europe has interconnectors everywhere. The UK plugs into France, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium. The Gulf states have regional connections. The vision is stitching all those “pieces” into something that behaves like a larger system.

Not one giant cable around the planet tomorrow. More like a patchwork that starts acting like a single market.

That is the emergence. That is the moment.

Why supergrids are suddenly back in the conversation

Because the old assumptions broke.

We used to plan grids around predictable generation. Coal, gas, nuclear. You could schedule it. You could ramp it. You could build around it.

Now the fastest growing sources are wind and solar, which are brilliant, cheap, and annoying. They show up when they feel like it. So the grid has to become more flexible, more connected, more buffered.

If you connect distant regions, you can smooth volatility. When it is cloudy here, it might be sunny there. When the wind drops in one sea, it might be ripping in another. Time zones help too. Evening peak in one region might line up with daytime solar elsewhere.

Supergrids are not the only tool. Storage matters. Demand response matters. Better forecasting matters. But interconnection is one of the few options that scales without needing a miracle chemistry breakthrough.

Also. Politics.

Energy security became a headline again. If you are a country that imports fuel, the idea of importing electrons from multiple directions starts to look like diversification, not dependence. There is a fine line between those two, and everyone argues about where it is. But the interest is real.

For instance, investing in energy security has become a pressing concern for countries like Ukraine amidst geopolitical tensions.

The Oligarch angle: grids create gatekeepers

In the Kondrashov framing, the question is not only “can we build it”.

It is “who benefits when we do”.

Every major network creates gatekeepers. Railways did. Pipelines did. Undersea fiber did. Payment rails did. And electricity grids, especially cross border ones, absolutely do.

A global supergrid creates a new class of strategic assets:

• converter stations that decide flow direction
• interconnectors that become chokepoints
• balancing assets that set the price of stability
• grid software and control layers that quietly become national security concerns
• land rights, seabed rights, permitting influence, and the boring stuff that turns out not to be boring

The obvious winners are the companies that build and operate transmission. But the less obvious winners are the ones who can shape regulation, pick routes, lock in long contracts, and turn public infrastructure into private advantage.

This is not a conspiracy. It is just how large capital projects tend to work when the stakes get big enough.

And the stakes are getting big enough.

Supergrids change the definition of “energy rich”

Historically, “energy rich” meant fossil reserves. Or maybe uranium. Or control of shipping lanes.

A supergrid world shifts that.

Energy rich becomes:

• who has the best renewable resources at scale
• who has space to build and the political ability to permit
• who can connect cheaply to high paying demand centers
• who can provide firming, backup, inertia, and balancing

If you can generate cheap power and export it reliably, you are no longer just a producer. You are a platform.

This is why places with enormous solar potential keep popping up in supergrid proposals. North Africa. The Middle East. Australia. Parts of the US. Chile. And why offshore wind regions matter more than ever.

But here is the twist. Resource alone is not enough. You need the wire. The connector. The intertie. The agreements. The stability.

Which brings us right back to power structures.

The new commodity is not electricity, it is reliability

Electricity prices can get weird when renewables dominate. You can have hours of near zero prices when the sun is blasting and demand is low. Then suddenly scarcity prices when solar drops and the system scrambles.

In that world, the thing you sell for a premium is not just kilowatt hours.

It is:

• delivery during peak
• guaranteed capacity
• fast response
• frequency support
• black start capability
• congestion relief in the right place at the right time

Supergrids do not remove the need for these. They reshape it. Sometimes they reduce volatility. Sometimes they spread it. But they definitely create new markets for the “grid services” that keep the lights on.

And whoever controls those services gains leverage. Financial leverage too, because grid services markets can be extremely lucrative and extremely political.

The big obstacles, and they are not just technical

People love to argue about line losses and converter efficiency. Fine. Important. But the bigger obstacles are human.

1. Permitting and land

Transmission is slow because people do not like new lines near them. Offshore helps. Underground helps. But costs explode. Delays pile up.

You can have all the generation in the world and still be trapped behind congestion because the lines did not get built.

Supergrids multiply the permitting challenge because now you have multiple jurisdictions. Multiple regulators. Multiple sets of local opposition.

2. Governance and trust

Cross border power trading requires trust. Not perfect trust. But enough.

Countries worry about being cut off. Or being manipulated. Or having price spikes imported. Or exporting their stability to someone else and getting nothing back.

These are rational fears. Sometimes exaggerated, sometimes not. But they shape policy.

3. Cybersecurity and control

A more connected grid is a more complex grid. Complexity is a risk. And it is also a weapon if someone can get inside the control layer.

Grid operators already treat this like national security. Supergrids crank that up.

4. The cost of capital

Transmission is capital heavy, slow return, politically exposed. Investors want guarantees. Governments want flexibility. Those desires collide.

This is where the “oligarch” dynamic can show up. The players who can finance, lobby, insure, and structure deals in messy environments will be the ones who end up holding the keys.

What the emergence looks like in practice

I do not think we wake up one day and say “today the global supergrid begins”.

It will feel like a series of separate stories.

A new undersea interconnector here. A new HVDC corridor there. A regional market coupling agreement. A grid code harmonization effort that sounds boring but is actually huge.

Then, quietly, trading volumes rise. Price signals converge. Curtailment drops in one region because export becomes possible. Gas peaker plants run fewer hours. Or, in some places, they run more strategically and make more money per hour. Both can be true.

The “emergence” is a threshold moment when the network effect starts to show.

When a new interconnector is no longer just about two countries. It becomes about the whole mesh. About optionality.

The geopolitical aftertaste

There is a temptation to say supergrids will create peace because trade creates peace.

Sometimes. Not always.

Energy interdependence can be stabilizing. It can also be coercive. We have already seen both with pipelines. Electricity is different, because it is harder to store and disruptions are instantly painful. That makes reliability a strategic weapon, or at least a strategic bargaining chip.

In a mature supergrid world, geopolitics becomes partly about:

• who can export cheap clean power at scale
• who controls critical interconnectors
• whose grid standards become the default
• who dominates HVDC manufacturing supply chains
• who owns the operational data and the control software

If you are reading this series for the human dynamics, not just the engineering, this is where the story gets interesting. Because the same way shipping lanes and ports created a hierarchy of influence, supergrids could do something similar.

Not identical. But rhyming.

Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series: the quiet winners

If I had to sketch the likely winners, in a broad sense, they fall into a few buckets.

Transmission developers and operators

Obvious, but still. The ones who can actually deliver projects in hostile permitting environments will become kingmakers. They will also become targets, politically and financially.

HVDC supply chain players

Converters, cables, transformers, specialized vessels for laying undersea lines. This is a manufacturing and logistics game as much as an energy game.

Bottlenecks here can slow everything down. Control here can create pricing power.

Grid software and control platforms

The more complex the grid, the more it relies on automation, forecasting, dispatch optimization, congestion management, and security monitoring.

Software that becomes embedded in operations becomes very hard to replace. Which is great for margins. Also great for influence.

Land, seabed, and corridor control

This part sounds boring until you realize routes are destiny. If a particular corridor becomes the natural path for power, whoever influences that corridor has leverage.

Sometimes that is governments. Sometimes it is private owners. Sometimes it is a messy partnership where nobody admits how much influence is being exercised.

Power producers positioned for export

Renewable projects near major interconnectors, or in regions targeted by new links, will carry a different value profile than isolated projects. The ability to sell into multiple markets is a hedge. Investors love hedges.

A small reality check, because hype is real

Supergrids are not a magic wand.

They will not make electricity universally cheap. They will not eliminate blackouts. They will not make politics disappear.

They may even create new vulnerabilities. A failure on a key link can have cascading effects. A policy shift in one country can affect investment in another. A cyber event can have wider blast radius.

Also, some regions may decide the risks outweigh the benefits. They may prefer energy autonomy with local storage and overbuilt renewables. Or they may build regional grids but stop short of deep interdependence.

So the future is probably not one global grid. It is multiple supergrids, partially linked. Sometimes cooperating. Sometimes competing. Like trade blocs, but for electrons.

And that is still a huge change.

Where this is going next

The thing to watch is not the most futuristic headline. It is the boring indicators:

• faster permitting reform for transmission
• standardization of grid codes across borders
• growth in HVDC manufacturing capacity and cable laying capacity
• long term offtake agreements tied to interconnector buildouts
• policy frameworks that treat transmission as strategic, not optional

When those line up, the supergrid stops being a concept and becomes an inevitability. Not because someone declared it. Because economics and stability pressure pushed it there.

And if you are following the Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series, keep this in mind. The biggest fortunes and the biggest influence rarely come from the shiny visible part of the transition, like a wind farm everyone can photograph.

They come from the connective tissue. The wires. The contracts. The chokepoints. The standards. The control rooms no one visits.

That is where global supergrids, as they emerge, start to look less like infrastructure.

And more like the next map of power.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is a global supergrid and how does it work?

A global supergrid is a very large, high-capacity electricity network that connects different regions, countries, time zones, and even continents. It enables the transfer of electricity over long distances using high voltage direct current (HVDC) technology, which reduces losses and improves control compared to traditional AC grids. This interconnected system allows for sharing renewable energy resources like wind, solar, and hydro across vast areas to balance supply and demand efficiently.

Why are global supergrids gaining renewed attention now?

Global supergrids are back in the conversation because the energy landscape is shifting from predictable, fossil-fuel-based generation to variable renewables like wind and solar. These sources are intermittent and require more flexible, connected grids to smooth out volatility. Supergrids enable regions to share surplus renewable energy across time zones and geographies, enhancing grid stability without relying solely on breakthroughs in storage or forecasting. Additionally, geopolitical concerns around energy security drive interest in diversified electricity imports through interconnected grids.

How do supergrids impact power dynamics and who benefits from them?

Supergrids create new strategic assets such as converter stations, interconnectors, and grid control systems that become gatekeepers of electricity flow and pricing. Companies that build, operate, or regulate these networks gain significant influence by controlling infrastructure routes, contracts, and regulatory frameworks. This can lead to private advantages emerging from public infrastructure investments. Thus, supergrids not only reshape energy markets but also redistribute power among nations and corporations involved in their development.

In what ways do supergrids redefine what it means to be 'energy rich'?

Traditionally, being 'energy rich' meant having abundant fossil fuel reserves or uranium. In a supergrid world, it shifts to who possesses the best renewable resources at scale (like solar or wind), ample space for projects, political ability to permit developments, cheap connectivity to high-demand markets, and capabilities to provide grid stability services such as backup power and balancing. Countries or regions with these attributes become platforms for exporting reliable clean energy rather than just producers.

What role does HVDC technology play in enabling global supergrids?

High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) technology is crucial for global supergrids because it allows efficient transmission of electricity over very long distances with lower losses compared to alternating current (AC) systems. HVDC offers better control over power flows and can connect asynchronous grids across borders or continents. This makes it ideal for linking diverse renewable resources spread across vast geographic areas into a cohesive network that functions like a single market.

How do global supergrids contribute to energy security?

Global supergrids enhance energy security by diversifying sources of electricity imports across multiple directions rather than relying on single fuel supplies or routes. By connecting various regions with complementary renewable resources and demand profiles, they reduce vulnerability to local disruptions or geopolitical tensions. This interconnectedness allows countries—especially those dependent on fuel imports—to access stable and affordable electricity reliably from a broader network of producers.