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Technology Review has an article on efforts to expand and modernise the European energy grid, easing the way for large scale renewables, particularly offshore -Europe Backs Supergrids. Last month, the European Commission (EC) called for construction of regional electric transmission connections across the North Sea, around the Baltic region, and around the Mediterranean Sea, to distribute solar and wind power to and across Europe. It's all part of a plan to boost renewable energy from 8.5 percent of European energy consumption to 20 percent by 2020--and even more thereafter. But the EC, the European Union's executive body, acknowledges that getting these so-called supergrids built will mean forging new agreements between European countries for transmission planning and investment--much as the United States needs more cooperation between states to, for example, move wind power from the Midwest to major cities. "The wind power which consumers demand cannot be delivered without new networks," the EC report says, and "there is little strategic planning" between nations to build the required connections.

The energy ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized countries and from China, India, and South Korea agreed on June 8 to establish the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC).

Basically a grand declaration and press release to justify a meeting. Let's hope there will be some substance (content, resources) behind.