Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) has granted conditional approval to Sun Cable to import 1.75 gigawatts (GW) of low-carbon electricity from Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore, says Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng.
Speaking at the Asia Clean Energy Summit (ACES) 2024 on Oct 22, Tan says Sun Cable will have to further validate its technical and commercial plans and secure all requisite approvals from the relevant jurisdictions — “including the countries through which the subsea cables will pass through”.
Sun Cable’s US$24 billion ($31.6 billion) Australia-Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink) project involves laying a 4,300km subsea power cable connecting a solar farm in Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore via Indonesian waters.
Considering the scale and distance of the project, Tan expects the Sun Cable project to only come online after 2035. “When completed, the project will be a meaningful complement to the Asean Power Grid and it will serve as an additional source of low-carbon electricity for Singapore.”
The AAPowerLink project aims to deliver up to 6GW of low-carbon electricity to industrial customers in Darwin — the capital city of the Northern Territory — and in Singapore.
The first phase consists of 4GW of solar panels, as well as an 800km overhead cable to Darwin. This first stage won environmental approval from the Australian government in August.
See also: A $26.4 bil plan to export power to Singapore wins approval
A final investment decision is expected in 2027 with electricity supply to begin in the early 2030s, according to Sun Cable.
EMA director Toh Wee Khiang says the project has always “seized the imagination” because of its “sheer ambition”. At 4,200km, the project will be the longest subsea power cable in the world when complete, surpassing the 4,000km-long Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project, which is still in the works.
The AAPowerLink presents “huge technical challenges” because it needs to traverse the Timor Trough,” says Toh on LinkedIn. “Imagine unspooling a very heavy power cable down to the ultra deep seabed.”
See also: EMA grants conditional approvals to import additional 1.4GW of low-carbon electricity from Indonesia
Mitesh Patel, interim CEO of Sun Cable, says the conditional approval is a “vote of confidence” from the Singapore government.
“We are confident we will meet the next stage of requirements for conditional licence, which will include ongoing design refinements to continue our compliance with EMA’s technical requirements, while delivering affordably priced electricity to our customers,” he adds in an Oct 22 statement.
In November 2022, the company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Indonesia’s energy ministry at the G20 business summit, formalising a collaboration between the two paries.
Sun Cable briefly collapsed in January 2023 after a disagreement between two key investors — mining magnate Andrew Forrest and tech tycoon Mike Cannon-Brookes — over whether the project should maintain its original plan to export solar power to Singapore through a giant cable, or instead use it to create green fuels. Cannon-Brooks acquired the company in May 2023 and resumed the project.
Last month, Singapore raised its low-carbon electricity import target to 6GW by 2035, up from a 4GW target set in 2021.
Electricity imports are expected to meet a third of Singapore's energy needs by 2035, and commercial operations under some import contracts could begin from 2028, said EMA on Sept 5.
