Similar problem in Germany, also mostly on a north/south axis.
A mitigating factor is PV+storage coming online mostly in the south and balancing this out somewhat.
According to grid operators, total projected grid expansion costs of ~$250 billion until 2045, but the majority is required sooner rather than later (~$200 billion within the next decade).
The majority of the UK’s population is in the South; it has a lot of wind capacity in general but especially in the very North. So the problem is getting it from North to South, not helped by how mountainous Scotland is.
Not many countries where supply and demand are evenly distributed. Britain does have the significant difficulty of high population density in the Midlands and South England, but the main problem here sees to be in Scotland and North England, so this should be less of an issue.
Learned helplessness in the political class has more to do with it, I think.
Most countries have generation a long way from populated areas. They also typically have much better and more modern and being built out transmission architecture so it is less of a problem though.
> Most countries have generation a long way from populated areas.
Sweden and Norway are the only European examples I can think of. Power generation is often outside cities, yes, but closer. I'm 50 miles from a Nuclear power station, for example, which is not atypical. That's 1/10 the distance we're talking about.
Ideally it would be closer to the population, but I think the correct the way of looking at it is that there is a large, mostly untapped resource in the North which somehow has to be transported.
