proposed by Greenpeace to link Europe and North Africa, emphasising the installation of solar power in the South of Europe. ISLES, an active proposal, at feasibility stage as of September 2011, to link Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland with off-shore renewable energy generation. The All Islands Approach, based on cooperation between the countries of the British Isles. EU PowerNet, a supergrid to be owned by a cooperative company, owned and governed by the 'national TSOs' of participating European States. The concept recognises the national sovereignty of those States while realising 'direct interconnectors' between all TSO-networks instead of only between neighbors. Related schemes DESERTEC, a concept based upon the idea of building concentrating solar power (CSP) stations in North Africa and the Middle East and exporting the power to Europe by HVDC lines. Medgrid, a project planned in North Africa, which aims to promote and develop a Euro-Mediterranean electricity network that would provide North Africa & Europe with inexpensive renewable electricity, mostly solar. The goal is to install 20 GW of generating capacity, with 5 GW being devoted to exports for Europe. On Nov 24, 2011, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Medgrid and Desertec Industry Initiative (Dii) to study, design and promote an interconnected electrical grid with Desertec & Medgrid projects. The medgrid together with Desertec would serve as the backbone of the European super grid and the benefits of investing in HVDC technology are being assessed to reach the final goal – the supersmart grid. Evaluations A report by Pöyry stated that a super grid would only partially reduce the problems from intermittent renewable energy production. While it found that spreading renewables across Europe produced a smoothing effect, large scale weather patterns would impact many European countries at similar times. This still results in large highs and lows of energy output. However this report does not consider the super grid covering the much larger area as the Czisch study, which would further smooth energy output to some extent. See also Intermittent energy source Relative cost of electricity generated by different sources SuperSmart Grid Synchronous grid of Continental Europe Wide area synchronous grid References External links European Commission Third Legislative Package MoU of the North Sea Countries Offshore Grid Initiative Supergrid Phase I proposal English translation (750 pages) of Gregor Czisch's supergrid thesis, by HE Translations Demand Side Management for the European Supergrid Proposed electric power transmission systems