Sun Cable gets initial approvals for audacious green energy plan
Plan includes 4,300km undersea cable from Australia to Singapore.
Can Sun Cable pull off its audacious plan to export green energy to Singapore via a 4,300km cable?
Sun Cable, the firm which plans to build one of the largest solar parks in the world in Australia has obtained the clearance to proceed.
Power from down under
To be built near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, the project received the go-ahead from the Northern Territory government and its environment agency last week.
Founded in 2018, Sun Cable has seen changes in ownership and plans. Exporting electricity across a 4,300km undersea cable to Singapore was an often-touted aspect of the project though.
Described as “a generation-defining piece of infrastructure”, the current plan is for Sun Cable to deliver 4GW of renewable energy supply to Darwin and 2GW to Singapore.
- Buyers in Singapore giving “positive feedback”.
- Letters of intent signed with electricity buyers in Darwin.
A final investment decision will be made in 2027.
Two stages to the project
Construction will start in late 2028 or early 2029 if the project goes ahead.
The plan is to build it in two stages.
- Stage one will now target both a link to Singapore and a new green manufacturing hub in Darwin. This will consist of 12GWp of wind and solar and 16GWh of battery storage.
- The second stage will focus on expanding the capacity of the link to Singapore and will add another 12GWp of wind and solar, and another 16GWh of battery storage.
2GW of power can furnish 15% of Singapore's needs and give the city-state a huge boost in decarbonising.
It's worth noting that earlier plans didn't have wind power, whose inclusion had allowed project planners to reduce battery storage capacity.
Will it happen?
The project is huge and boggles the mind. Certainly, nobody has delivered so much power over such a distance before.
The world's longest interconnector today is the 756km long Viking Link, which goes across the North Sea between the UK and Denmark.
- For now, Singaporean has yet to clear the project, as it considers other clean energy import proposals.
- Sun Cable also needs the approval of the Indonesian government to build the cable in its waters.
Even if things go smoothly, it'll be a while before clean energy flows from power sockets in Singapore. According to the 𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸, the Singapore component is targeted for delivery only in 2035.
How else can Singapore decarbonise?
