Sun Cable shareholder Squadron wants to forego submarine cable

In the dispute over the future direction of the Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPowerLink) – connecting solar and storage power plants in Australia's Northern Territory to Singapore via a 4,200-kilometer undersea high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line – one of the two major shareholders in project developer Sun Cable apparently wants to forgo the submarine cable. Squadron Energy, led by billionaire Andrew Forrest and with a 25 percent stake in Sun Cable, no longer sees the profitability of this link, according to a report by the Bloomberg news agency. The company »continues to believe in the vision for a game changing solar and battery project in the Northern Territory’s Barkly region«, explained Squadron chair John Hartmann.
The disagreements between Squadron Energy and the second major shareholder, billionaire Mike Cannon-Brooks, who is also a member of Sun Cable’s board, led to Sun Cable initiating voluntary administration last week (our report of January 11). The project is considered the largest of its kind in the world. The AAPowerLink website (aapowerlink.sg) lists 3.2 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity for interconnection with the Indonesian electricity market, while Sun Cable names 17 to 20 GW of photovoltaics in conjunction with 36 to 42 gigawatt hours of battery storage capacity for the total project.
© PHOTON