A plan to use subsea high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines to send solar energy from Australia to consumers in Singapore 2,600 miles away remains well in the future, but received a boost October 18 when government leaders agreed on a “green economy” deal to boost cooperation on climate investment, financing and technology.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told a news conference in Canberra that work would begin to write up a list of environmental goods and services that could be given favorable trade treatment.
And Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese cited the A$30 billion ($18.8 billion) Sun Cable project as an example of what the agreement could achieve.
“A project like Sun Cable which has the potential to export clean energy to Singapore is the ultimate win-win,” Albanese was quoted as saying.
Project review agency Infrastructure Australia signed off in June on the project’s economic merit. With that, the Australia-Asia PowerLink moved to “investment-ready” status on Australia’s Infrastructure Priority List.
Construction could start in 2024 with electricity supplied to Darwin in 2027 and full operations by 2029.
As conceived, the project would combine solar, storage and transmission, moving renewable electricity generated in the Barkly Region of Australia’s Northern Territory to Darwin and on to Singapore.
The project would supply capacity to Darwin and meet up to 15% of Singapore’s total electricity needs. Project components include a nearly 30,000-acre Solar Precinct with 17-20 GWp of solar generation and 36-42 GWh energy storage.
An HVDC overhead transmission line would move around 3.2 GW of electricity to the greater Darwin region. From there, HVDC subsea cables would move around 2 GW of electricity some 4,200km to Singapore, largely through Indonesian waters.
A year ago, Sun Cable formed a project delivery team made up of Bechtel (project delivery), SMEC (solar generation system), Surbana Jurong Group, Hatch (HVDC transmission), Marsh (risk management), PwC Australia (project advisory).
The firm is led by David Griffin, who developed one of Australia’s first utility-scale wind farms in the 2000s. He has since developed utility-scale solar and wind farms in Australia and South Africa. Analysis in 2018 of HVDC submarine cable technology led him to conclude that the technology had evolved enough to allow one of the first intercontinental transmission links to be developed.
