Aussie billionaire revives bid to sell solar power to Singapore
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Sun Cable's multi-billion-dollar project would ship sunshine from Darwin, Australia, to Singapore via subsea cables.
PHOTO: SUN CABLE
Anita Gabriel
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SINGAPORE - The sun may be back up on Sun Cable’s multibillion-dollar solar project to ship sunshine from Darwin, Australia, to Singapore
The latest development comes after Australian billionaire and tech entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes and co-investor Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners emerged as owners of Sun Cable in May, the collapse of the company.
The sale of Sun Cable’s assets, including the shares in its operating subsidiaries, to a private investment firm run by Mr Cannon-Brookes has been completed, said his private investment company Grok Ventures on Thursday.
Sun Cable went into administration in January after Mr Cannon-Brookes and another Australian billionaire, Mr Andrew Forrest, fell out on whether to continue with the Singapore cable part of the development.
Grok Ventures said on Thursday that Sun Cable will lodge its submission later in September to Singapore’s Energy Market Authority to gain the energy import conditional licence for the project.
It said Sun Cable is moving forward with a “renewed focus” to progress the Australia-Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink) – a mammoth intercontinental undertaking that includes building a 20 gigawatt (GW) solar farm and a battery storage capacity in a small town in Australia’s Northern Territory.
Apart from powering up Darwin, the company’s flagship project aims to connect to Singapore via a 4,200km underwater cable link snaking through Indonesian waters.
Mr Cannon-Brookes said: “Sun Cable’s AAPowerLink project has all the component parts to make the next great Australian infrastructure initiative possible.
“There’s huge upside for both Australia and our neighbours, Singapore and Indonesia. We look forward to working with our partners across Asia to drive this.”
“Through the due diligence process, Grok Ventures has obtained comfort that there is a deep pool of reputable prospective off-takers. To date, Sun Cable has received expressed interest of approximately six times its first supply to Darwin, and over around 1.5 times its supply to Singapore (reflecting 2.5GW of customer off-take interest),” said the company.
It added that it will also continue to engage with the Indonesian government to obtain the required licence to lay the subsea cables through the country’s territorial waters, and work with the Australian government to support its ambitions.
“Once all milestones are reached, and we reach a financial investment decision, we have a high conviction that large institutional investors and debt providers will fund the capital expenditure to construct the project,” said Grok Ventures chief executive Jeremy Kwong-Law.
Sun Cable’s flagship project hopes to deliver some 6GW of renewable energy in multiple stages.
In the first stage, the project will generate 900MW of power in Australia, while more than 1.75GW will be delivered to Singapore.
Subsequently, an additional 3GW of renewable electricity is planned for customers in Darwin.
Sun Cable has also split the massive project into two streams to ensure “efficient and effective delivery” – the onshore component Sun Cable Australia, which will be overseen by Quinbrook, and Sun Cable International, the offshore component involving the project’s most complex portion (the subsea cables). THE BUSINESS TIMES
