Connecting Electrical Grid Length and Material Stock to Population Density: Comparison of a French-Calibrated Scaling with 35 Electrified Countries

Abstract

The expansion of global electricity distribution systems necessitates the deployment of massive infrastructure. Assessing its implications from a spatial and material perspective requires an understanding of the core drivers of a distribution grid configuration. Our model samples substation locations using a non-linear relationship with population density and constructs a proxy network applying the Kruskal algorithm. This streamlined approach generates a proxy grid layout at the local scale and provides reasonable aggregate estimates of the total network length at the national scale. Using highly granular population data, this local model reveals a connection between population spread and distribution grid, which appears to persist at larger scales. Potentially driven by the emergent properties of population scaling laws, the aggregated network characteristics appear to be well described by multivariate power laws on aggregated population and area. Benchmarked against reported aggregate data for 35 countries, these results provide new multi-scale tools for characterizing electrical infrastructure and reveal key determinants of distribution grid extent. Combining network length estimates with material intensity data, we derive country-scale inventories of copper invested in medium-voltage lines, bounded by aerial and underground cabling assumptions. The same scaling law directly yields a macro-level proxy for copper mass as a function of population and area, extending the framework toward prospective assessments of material demand in electricity grid expansion.