Ambitious plan to power Singapore with world’s biggest solar farm ... 4,000km away in Australia
- Electricity generated by solar farm in Australia’s Northern Territory would be exported via undersea cable
The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply.
Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change.
If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world.
Known as Sun Cable, it is promised to be the world’s largest solar farm. If developed as planned, a 10-gigawatt-capacity array of panels will be spread across 15,000 hectares and be backed by battery storage to ensure it can supply power around the clock.
Overhead transmission lines will send electricity to Darwin and plug into the Northern Territory grid. But the bulk would be exported via a high-voltage direct-current submarine cable snaking through the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore, which is more than 4,000km from Tennant Creek as the crow flies.
The developers say it will be able to provide one-fifth of the island city state’s electricity needs, replacing its increasingly expensive gas-fired power.
After 18 months in development, the A$20 billion Sun Cable development had a quiet coming out party three weeks ago at a series of events held to highlight the Northern Territory’s solar potential.