[Retric]

Sending a meaningful chunk of US electricity through HVDC lines is probably not that expensive.

A hypothetical estimate of 100% NYC’s electricity from Southern Arizona to NYC across HVDC adds up to ~1,300$/per person for infrastructure that lasts ~50 years.

East/west is even cheaper because people on both ends would want to move electricity. Florida solar kicks in early in the morning for California and California solar is still available late into the evening Florida time. You have some losses across HVDC, but you have losses and battery degradation with storage.

[7thaccount]

The cost to build a loop of transmission across the entire US is EXTREMELY expensive. It costs billions just for short segments of transmission.

[Retric]

The only reason to build them is because they lower your total costs. Over its lifespan the value of power lost in transmission over a 1,000km HVDC line in regular operation is significantly more than the direct costs to build and operate one. But you can get a lot more efficiency building solar in Nevada vs the northeastern US which more than pays for those costs.

So, if by short distances you’re talking 1,000+km and 10GW then sure it’s billions. However, the US is only so big and Billion’s don’t actually mean much to move over 2% of the US’s total electricity.