I keep coming back to this weird truth about modern power.
Electricity is the most ordinary thing in our lives, right. Lights, laptops, heat pumps, data centers humming in the background. You do not think about it until it is gone. And yet the system that delivers it is one of the biggest, most political machines humans have ever built.
Not because electrons are political. Because networks are.
This piece is part of the Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series, and the lens is simple. When you zoom out far enough, the story of intercontinental electricity networks is not only about engineering. It is about access. About chokepoints. About who pays for the giant cables and who gets to set the rules once the cable lands.
And yes. About oligarchy. Or at least oligarchic behavior, even when the actors are not literal oligarchs with yachts. The pattern is the same. Control the bottleneck, shape the market, influence the state, repeat.
So let’s talk about how electricity grids grew past borders, why the next step is even messier, and where power, money, and governance collide.
The grid was never meant to be global
Most national grids started with a local logic.
A city builds a plant near a river. A factory needs reliable power. A region gets connected. Then another. And eventually you get a national grid that feels inevitable, like it was always going to happen.
But it did not. It was a bunch of decisions layered on top of each other for decades.
Now take that logic and try to stretch it across oceans or deserts or politically hostile borders.
That is where the grid stops being just a utility and starts becoming something like a geopolitical instrument.
Because an intercontinental link is not a casual project. It is a capital monster. It requires long term contracts, regulatory alignment, stable diplomacy, physical security, and usually some kind of guarantee that the project will not become a stranded asset when politics flips.
And that is where concentrated power loves to show up.
Why intercontinental electricity networks are suddenly “real” again
People have been dreaming about supergrids forever. The concept comes and goes. What changed is the mix of pressure and possibility.
A few forces are pushing the idea back into the mainstream:
- Renewables are unevenly distributed. The best sun and wind are not always near the biggest demand centers.
- Seasonal balancing is valuable. One region has surplus when another has shortage. If you can move electricity far enough, you can smooth peaks and dips.
- HVDC tech matured. High Voltage Direct Current is basically the workhorse of long distance transmission now. Lower losses over long distances, controllable flows, easier to connect asynchronous grids.
- Energy security became a headline. Supply shocks make politicians suddenly interested in redundancy and optionality.
So the dream returns, but now with better cables, better power electronics, and a much louder argument: decarbonize without collapsing reliability.
Still. The second you propose a link that crosses a sea or a contested border, the conversation stops being about megawatts and becomes about leverage.
Oligarchy is not always a person, sometimes it is a structure
In this series, when we say “oligarchy,” it is tempting to picture a single tycoon. Sometimes that is accurate. But often the more important idea is structural. A small group. A tight network of interests. A club that can decide outcomes because the system is too complex for outsiders to challenge them.
Intercontinental electricity networks are perfect for that kind of concentration because:
- They have huge upfront costs. Only a few players can finance, insure, and build them.
- They require regulatory privileges. Permits, land rights, seabed rights, interconnection rules, tariff structures.
- They create chokepoints. A cable landing station is not a “competitive market.” It is a physical fact.
- They invite long term lock in. Contracts can run 20 to 40 years. That is a long time to entrench power.
So the oligarchic dynamic is not only about corruption. It can be entirely legal, even celebrated. “Public private partnership.” “Strategic infrastructure.” “National champion.”
Same result sometimes. Narrow control over a system that everyone depends on.
The quiet shift from national grids to regional power blocs
Before you even reach “intercontinental,” there is a step that already shows the pattern: regional integration.
When grids interconnect regionally, you get real benefits. Lower reserve margins, shared balancing, better utilization of generation. But you also get politics.
Who dispatches first. Whose rules dominate. Who pays when something fails. Who gets blamed.
This is where power blocs form. Not just in the military sense, in the electrical sense. A region that can trade electricity efficiently becomes a kind of energy coalition, with internal dependencies.
And once you have coalitions, you can have gatekeepers.
Merchant interconnectors and the business of being the bridge
One of the most interesting developments in cross border power is the rise of merchant interconnectors, or privately financed links that make money by capturing price differences between markets.
In theory, this is elegant. Electricity is cheaper in Market A and expensive in Market B. Build a cable, sell the spread, reduce costs for consumers, profit for investors. Everyone wins.
In practice, the person who owns the bridge often tries to shape both shores.
Not always directly. Sometimes through lobbying. Sometimes through technical standards. Sometimes through strategic timing of maintenance. Sometimes through pushing market design in ways that make the spread larger or more predictable.
This is where the “oligarch series” framing matters. The bridge owner becomes a political actor whether they want to or not, because their returns depend on policy. And policy makers depend on the bridge because it helps keep lights on.
A neat little loop.
Intercontinental power is not one project, it is a chain of dependencies
When people talk about intercontinental electricity networks, they often talk like it is a single cable and a handshake.
But the reality is a chain.
Generation, transmission corridors, converter stations, grid reinforcement on both ends, balancing resources, cybersecurity, physical security, dispute resolution, even maritime security in some cases.
If any link is weak, the whole project becomes fragile.
And fragility is where concentrated power offers itself as the solution. “We can manage this complexity.” “We can guarantee delivery.” “We can provide financing when others cannot.”
Sometimes that is true. Sometimes it is self serving. Often it is both at once, which is what makes it hard to talk about honestly.
The new resource empires might be built on electrons, not oil
For a century, oil and gas shaped geopolitics because molecules move through pipelines and shipping lanes that can be controlled.
Electricity is different. You cannot easily store it at massive scale, not yet, and you cannot reroute it casually when you have only a few interconnectors.
So when you connect continents, you are creating a new kind of strategic dependency. If a region imports a meaningful share of power through one corridor, that corridor becomes a lever.
Now add this layer: renewables plus HVDC can turn remote regions with excellent sun or wind into “exporters” without exporting fuel. They export electrons.
That sounds cleaner. It is. But politically, it can recreate the same patterns of influence.
Who owns the solar fields. Who owns the HVDC line. Who owns the converter terminals. Who negotiates the power purchase agreements.
If those assets are concentrated, you do not get a democratized green future. You get a green version of old power.
Different technology. Familiar incentives.
How oligarchic influence typically shows up in mega grids
Let’s make this practical. In big infrastructure, oligarchic influence rarely announces itself. It shows up in the boring paperwork, in the committees, in who gets invited to the “stakeholder process.”
Common moves look like this:
1. Controlling feasibility narratives
Commission the studies. Fund the consultants. Frame the cost benefit analysis. If you control the assumptions, you often control the conclusion.
2. Owning the permitting timeline
Delays kill projects. The group that can navigate permits fastest, or slow competitors down, gains advantage.
3. Shaping market rules around the interconnector
Capacity allocation, congestion revenue, curtailment rules, priority dispatch. These details decide where billions flow over decades.
4. Securing state guarantees
Once you convince a government that a cable is strategic, the state starts carrying risk. Socialized risk, privatized upside. The classic.
5. Building political dependency through reliability
Deliver stability during a crisis and you become untouchable. Not because you are perfect. Because no one wants to gamble with blackouts.
None of this requires a cartoon villain. It only requires concentrated capital meeting a complex system under stress.
The engineering is hard, but governance is harder
Technically, we know how to push a lot of power a long way. HVDC lines, subsea cables, multi terminal concepts, grid forming converters. The toolbox is expanding.
What we do not have nailed down is governance.
Questions that become unavoidable:
- Who has curtailment priority when supply is tight.
- Who pays for grid upgrades inland, away from the cable.
- How disputes are resolved when two regulators disagree.
- What happens when a government changes and wants to renegotiate.
- How to handle cyber threats that can cross borders instantly.
- How to manage cascading failures when interconnected systems spread instability.
This is where the evolution of intercontinental networks starts to resemble the evolution of financial systems. Interconnectedness brings efficiency, then it brings contagion risk, then it demands oversight. But oversight tends to lag.
And lag is where powerful interests thrive.
The “green supergrid” dream can either decentralize power or concentrate it
There are two competing futures hiding inside the same infrastructure.
One future is genuinely positive. Intercontinental links help balance renewables, reduce fossil backup, and lower total system costs. They make energy cheaper and cleaner. They reduce the need for each country to overbuild its own reserves. They create resilience through diversity.
The other future is more cynical. A few mega projects become the new gates of power. A handful of owners sit between regions, extracting rents. Governments accept it because they want decarbonization headlines and grid stability. Consumers pay, but the pricing is too technical for meaningful accountability. Opponents get painted as anti progress.
Same cables. Different governance.
If you want the first future, you need to design against the second one on purpose. It will not happen automatically.
What “better” looks like, even if it is not glamorous
I am not going to pretend there is a single fix. But there are some governance principles that reduce oligarchic capture in grid expansion.
Make ownership and revenue transparent.
Not just the project company name. The ultimate beneficial owners, the revenue model, the congestion revenue handling, the off take agreements.
Separate operation from ownership where possible.
If the operator is independent, it is harder to manipulate flows for profit. Not impossible. Harder.
Build competitive procurement into everything.
Converters, cables, construction, even parts of the financing. Closed clubs form when procurement becomes “relationship based.”
Limit guaranteed returns unless risk is truly public.
If taxpayers are the backstop, taxpayers should share upside. Otherwise you are basically writing a check to a private gatekeeper.
Create real cross border dispute mechanisms.
Not vague memorandums. Actual enforceable frameworks that can survive elections.
And maybe the biggest one, honestly.
Invest in domestic grid strength too.
Weak domestic grids create urgency. Urgency creates bad deals. The best defense against capture is not purity, it is optionality.
So where does Stanislav Kondrashov’s oligarch lens land on all this
The point of the Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series is not to say every big project is corrupt, or that wealth automatically equals wrongdoing.
It is to say that when infrastructure becomes strategic, the incentives bend toward concentration. And concentration tends to defend itself.
Intercontinental electricity networks might be essential for a low carbon world. They might also be the next arena where private power and state power blur into the same thing. The same dinner tables, the same advisors, the same revolving door. And a public that only notices the system when it breaks.
So the question is not “should we build intercontinental grids.”
We probably will. In some form.
The question is who gets to own the bridges, who gets to write the rules of the bridges, and whether ordinary consumers and smaller market players have any real visibility into what is being traded in their name.
Because in the end, electricity is not just energy.
It is permission. It is leverage. It is the ability to keep an economy moving.
And when the network goes intercontinental, the stakes stop being local. They become civilizational. Which sounds dramatic. But also, look around. This is exactly where we are headed.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Why is electricity considered a political and economic machine beyond just being a utility?
Electricity networks are not just about electrons; they are complex political and economic systems because they involve control over chokepoints, access to infrastructure, regulatory rules, and long-term contracts. This concentration of power can shape markets, influence governments, and create oligarchic dynamics even when the actors are not literal oligarchs.
What challenges arise when expanding electricity grids beyond national borders to intercontinental levels?
Expanding electricity grids intercontinentally involves massive capital investments, regulatory alignment across countries, stable diplomatic relations, physical security concerns, and guarantees against stranded assets due to political changes. These challenges turn the grid into a geopolitical instrument rather than just a utility service.
What factors have recently renewed interest in building intercontinental electricity supergrids?
Renewed interest in supergrids is driven by uneven distribution of renewable resources like sun and wind, the value of seasonal balancing between regions with surplus and shortage, maturation of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) technology enabling efficient long-distance transmission, and heightened concerns about energy security prompting politicians to seek redundancy and optionality.
How does oligarchic behavior manifest in the structure of intercontinental electricity networks?
Oligarchic behavior in electricity networks arises structurally from high upfront costs limiting participation to few players, regulatory privileges required for operation, creation of physical chokepoints like cable landing stations, and long-term contracts that entrench power. This concentration can be legal and institutionalized via public-private partnerships or national champions but results in narrow control over essential infrastructure.
What is the significance of regional integration in electricity grids before reaching intercontinental connections?
Regional integration allows grids to share reserves, balance supply and demand more efficiently, and optimize generation use. However, it also introduces politics regarding dispatch priorities, rule dominance, cost sharing during failures, and accountability. Such integration forms energy coalitions or power blocs that create internal dependencies and gatekeepers within the region.
What role do merchant interconnectors play in cross-border electricity markets and what are their implications?
Merchant interconnectors are privately financed transmission links that profit from price differences between markets by selling electricity where it’s more expensive. While theoretically beneficial for consumers and investors alike, owners often gain political influence by lobbying or shaping market rules to maintain or increase price spreads. This creates a feedback loop where bridge owners become key political actors due to their critical role in energy reliability.
