Singapore Approves 2,600-Mile Undersea Cable to Import Solar Energy from Australia (newatlas.com) 85
"The world's largest renewable energy and transmission project has received key approval from government officials," reports New Atlas.
Solar power from Australia will be carried 2,672 miles (4,300 kilometers) to Singapore over undersea cables in what's being called "the Australia-Asia Power Link project." Reuters reports that SunCable "aims to produce 6 gigawatts of electricity at a vast solar farm in Northern Australia and ship about a third of that to Singapore via undersea cable."
More from New Atlas: [The project] will start by constructing a mammoth solar farm in Australia's Northern Territory to transmit around-the-clock clean power to [the Australian city] Darwin, and also export "reliable, cost-competitive renewable energy" to Singapore... with a clean energy generation capacity of up to 10 gigawatts, plus utility scale onsite storage. [The recently-obtained environmental approval] also green lights an 800-km (~500-mile) overhead transmission line between the solar precinct and Murrumujuk near Darwin...
If all of the dominoes line up perfectly, supply of the first clean electricity is estimated to start in the early 2030s. An overview graphic on the project page shows that the eventual end game for the Powell Creek development appears to be the generation of up to 20 GW of peak solar power and have some 36-42 GWh of battery storage on site.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
Solar power from Australia will be carried 2,672 miles (4,300 kilometers) to Singapore over undersea cables in what's being called "the Australia-Asia Power Link project." Reuters reports that SunCable "aims to produce 6 gigawatts of electricity at a vast solar farm in Northern Australia and ship about a third of that to Singapore via undersea cable."
More from New Atlas: [The project] will start by constructing a mammoth solar farm in Australia's Northern Territory to transmit around-the-clock clean power to [the Australian city] Darwin, and also export "reliable, cost-competitive renewable energy" to Singapore... with a clean energy generation capacity of up to 10 gigawatts, plus utility scale onsite storage. [The recently-obtained environmental approval] also green lights an 800-km (~500-mile) overhead transmission line between the solar precinct and Murrumujuk near Darwin...
If all of the dominoes line up perfectly, supply of the first clean electricity is estimated to start in the early 2030s. An overview graphic on the project page shows that the eventual end game for the Powell Creek development appears to be the generation of up to 20 GW of peak solar power and have some 36-42 GWh of battery storage on site.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
Losses (Score:3, Informative)
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More concerning is that the loss is 100% when the cable gets cut either on accident or intentionally.
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More concerning is that the loss is 100% when the cable gets cut either on accident or intentionally.
That is only a concern in relatively flat water. And the ship that does it gets 2GW into their anchor chain. I imagine this will not happen again after the first time. As to intentionally, you can just as easily cut an overland line using a drone. In fact, that is a _lot_ easier.
Re:Losses (Score:5, Informative)
Underwater HVDC cables are a single conductor, with the salt water acting as the other. Cutting the cable with an anchor isn't going to do much to the ship.
At least that's how it is connecting the North and South Island of New Zealand, with 1.2GW capacity
Re:Losses (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, imagine the losses on those transmission lines!
Will likely be a HVDC transmission system given those distances.
Yes, there will be some power loss along the line and in the AC-DC then DC-AC conversion process, but the overall concept is highly effective ... just ask Southern California ;)))))
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You must live in some southern shithole
No. I live in that corner of the country that's sending you power.
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Wow, imagine the losses on those transmission lines!
Will likely be a HVDC transmission system given those distances.
Yes, there will be some power loss along the line and in the AC-DC then DC-AC conversion process
Solar cells produce DC. So, it's either:
DC-AC...AC-DC...DC-AC
(DC cell to AC overland transmission, AC to DC undersea, DC to AC household)
or just DC-AC
(DC cells to overland to undersea to AC household)
But I suspect that the conversion components can be more efficient than you think.
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At certain energy levels it's cheaper to supercool the line than to accept the losses.
That might be less worthwhile if you already have an ocean to help.
Re:Losses (Score:5, Informative)
It's about 3% per 1000km on HVDC lines. Fortunately solar power is the cheapest around.
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Indeed. About the same number I found (3.5%/1000km: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]). Not an issue.
What is nice is that apparently solar power is now cheap enough that very long transmission line building makes sense.
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Long distance transmission has made sense for a long time, because energy prices differences between regions tend to be much more than the losses.
It's just that only this century did we start to get really good and reliable HVDC stuff to make it happen. Fits well with renewables coming to the fore.
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At 4300km? About 15% using HVDC. Which you could have found out with some minimal research.
Re:Losses (Score:5, Informative)
Most losses on transmission lines are due to reactance between phases (raising voltage doesn't help much as it makes the electric field stronger), and the resistive losses of needing a cable thin enough to be dangling from the sky. This project is an HVDC undersea cable which doesn't have either of those issues. There are very few losses over the length of a transmission line for HVDC, just some losses in conversion at either end.
Australia is known to transmit power many thousands of km already over traditional transmission lines. They have interconnectors between all states which amusingly lead to a frequency disruption in Northern Queensland getting corrected by the Hornsdale Power Reserve (Tesla battery) in South Australia 3000km away faster than the local gas frequency correction plant could spin up.
This HVDC link will have less losses than a lot of electrons zipping around Australia right now.
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Not between all states, just parts of the eastern half :)
So that grid is a thousand miles from Darwin where the proposed undersea cable would land. (if it ever gets financed)
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Indeed the NT is a bit out in the cold. But I never implied that this system will be connected to that grid, just pointing out that this will be far more efficient than some things Australia already has.
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Your sin was to ignore us in the West :-) Grid-wise, i guess we are the Texas of Australia.
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Less than the losses a gasoline truck has when he brings gasoline to your next gasoline station.
FACEPALM.
(P.S. where does this loss myth come from? You learn nothing in school in your country? The loss on this line will perhaps be 5%, likely less.)
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This sounds like something that could be catastrophic for marine wildlife.
Or it could become a path for UFOs to follow underwater. If you know that old TV show (broadcast in the US but created in the UK) and that episode.
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This will also be catastrophic for Australia's electricity prices, if the current gas export market is anything to go by. Before Australia had export gas terminals, domestic gas was relatively cheap - but once it started getting exported, now domestic customers have to compete against overseas customers, and LPG went from $3 per Gigajoule to $10 per Gigajoule.
From this article:
https://australiainstitute.org... [australiai...ute.org.au]
The Australian people own the gas underground, However, most multinational exporters pay no royalt
Re:massive electrical and magnetic fields (Score:4, Interesting)
What happened to gas in Australia was a travesty but this will be nothing like that. You can't create an open market for electricity by linking to another country. Singapore is a consumer, not a major trader, no new market will be joined or made by this. This is more akin to getting a big customer, which is nothing like what the gas export business did: opened local gas prices up to a fungible international market which pushed the price up and made it sensitive to international trade.
There's other reasons to be against this: Australia doesn't even have its own house in order yet, that power could go a long way locally. But it's not going to affect the price of electricity, especially consider there will be a power purchasing agreement for a limited 20% of the solar farm from a single customer (Singapore). It's no different to a giant mine going into operation, you don't notice that on your bill either.
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There's an argument for connecting WA and the NT to the national grid.
But Darwin isn't connected to the NEM, so as a Melburnian this has zero impact on my domestic electricity bill.
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Someday, maybe, HVDC lines may export enough energy to raise prices in Australia, but this project won't do it. The plan is to send 2GW of power over this transmission line, which *would* be a significant fraction of Australia's generation capacity, except it's coming from a new solar plant that will add a total of 6GW of capacity. So overall this project, including the new plant, will add +4 GW of generating capacity to the Australian supply.
Re: massive electrical and magnetic fields (Score:2)
It will add 4 GW to the grid when the sun is shining, at night not so much, but that can be worked around.
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It says right in the article summary that the project includes large scale grid storage.
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"Inefficiency" doesn't matter. It's not like oil where engineering efficiency determines financial efficiency because you're paying for the joules in the form of fuel. With solar you're getting the joules for free, so it's perfectly fine to throw 90% of them away *if the financial numbers work*.
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HVDC shielded transmission wires do not create massive electrical fields. They barely create minor electrical fields.
There's always that guy ... (Score:2)
Indonesia, Malaysia (Score:2)
What are those chopped liver?
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Lost in transmission (Score:1)
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Loss is about 3% per 1000km for HVDC lines like this. The higher the voltage, the lower the loss, and the tech is improving in that area all the time.
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No, most energy losses in transmission lines are the result of reactance between phases. HVDC lines have only conversion and resistive losses, and they are very small.
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No. Your knowledge is massively outdated. About 3.5% per 1000km these days with HVDC, so about 15% for the full range. Incidentally, even HVAC would only have about 30% loss for this distance, but the cables are a lot more expensive. HVDC is just a single wire, and the 2nd direction is via ground.
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I have never heard of a power-distribution system that relies on actual ground to complete the circuit. Can anyone share examples?
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Railways.
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Using the rails as a conductor? That's not actual ground.
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The rails are on the ground.
Or do you think they are hovering somewhere in mid air?
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The rails are a conductor that happens to be on the ground, or more correctly, on top of ties, which are typically made of a dielectric non-conducting material called "wood."
As I said in my original reply to gweihir, I would like to hear of an example of a power-distribution system that uses the actual, physical ground as a second conductor. Not some conductor laid on the ground.
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And I just did, from an AC and from _merlin. See below.
Re:Lost in transmission (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not entirely true. If the rail was exclusively used as the conductor then the distance from the train to the substation would cause the rail to increase in voltage relative to the earth due to the resistance of the rail which could potentially lead to someone getting electrocuted by touching the rail when the train has passed. Additionally this would also cause stray leakage current to pass into structures near and even underneath the railway potentially damaging them (e.g. via galvanic corrosion).
While power is run through the rail itself, those rails are linked to earth stakes at regular intervals. Current doesn't flow the length of the rail back to the transformer but rather only a very short distance through it and then out to earth. But even then it's not that easy. The connection to earth (of which there are many) also occurs through resistors to try and limit current to earth at any given point (reducing step potential in the ground too).
That all being said, many of these systems also don't feed to earth, but rather at regular intervals connect the rail back to a neutral conductor back to the substation.
There are many many variants of traction electrical systems, but it is correct to say that some of them are incredibly similar to single wire earth return systems.
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Thanks for this. Still not a physical-ground return, but I'll admit it's close.
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Thanks to you and _merlin (below) for this. Color me informed.
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Any number of SWER [wikipedia.org] systems. Also Basslink [wikipedia.org] between mainland Australia and Tasmania, which is particularly relevant as it's an undersea DC link like this proposed link to Singapore.
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Undersea HVDC cables have a massive grounding array at each end.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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For HVDC that is one of the options.
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You can't run HVAC under water. The cable would turn into a giant capacitor, causing reactive power losses to be excessive.
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Incidentally, even HVAC would only have about 30% loss for this distance,
Not under the sea it wouldn't!
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I was arguing with someone a while ago that qualitative knowlege is really only useful as a starting point for quantification. You've provided an excellent example.
Where to put the batteries? (Score:2)
some 36-42 GWh of battery storage on site.
This is an interesting engineering question: what are the pros and cons of having battery storage on generation site versus on consumer site. Obviously the later means more smaller batteries than the former.
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some 36-42 GWh of battery storage on site.
This is an interesting engineering question: what are the pros and cons of having battery storage on generation site versus on consumer site. Obviously the later means more smaller batteries than the former.
Depends on where the variability is. Since the required cable cross-section is proportional to how much current is flowing through it, you want the power through the cable to be constant for lowest cable cost. So, the solar energy produced during the day should be sent during both day and night-- meaning, storage at the generation site. But, the usage will vary with time, meaning, storage at the utilization site. To minimize the cable cost, you'd want storage on both sides. But, to minimize battery cost, y
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But in this case, perhaps the cost of real estate is so, SO much lower in AUS than Singapore that it overrides other factors.
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If the storage is on consumer site, you would need to transfer twice as much energy during daytime.
And obviously nothing at all during night.
Having the storage at the source, also means you can use it for other needs.
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Of the 6GW being generated, 4GW will be used by Australian industrial customers in Darwin (800km away), with the remaining 2GW supplying Singapore (4,300km).
The text boxes on the map at the top of the page indicate that the 42GWh battery will be based at the solar farm, with additional local batteries at the Darwin and Singapore converter sites:
https://newatlas.com/energy/su... [newatlas.com]
How large would this cable be? (Score:2)
Just curious about the dimensions of something like this. It's probably much smaller than I would think.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Conductor sizes 1200 mm2 are most common, but sizes 2400 mm2 have been made occasionally.
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I say we should test out some autonomous robotic manufacturing tech and turn all the non-urban parts of Australia into a giant solar panel.
Is this a good idea? No, for many, many reasons. But it would still be awesome.
Doesn't the sun shine in Singapore? (Score:2)
Look, I get that Australia may have space for a solar farm and Singapore might not, but it seems to me that one of the most attractive aspects of solar power is that it does not need to rely on a distribution grid. I have solar power on my house, and I feed the grid, not the other way around.
TFA appears to be oddly silent on this matter.
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Singapore has a tropical climate with abundant rainfall. The planned panels will be sited in the Australian desert, where there is much less chance of rainclouds messing up their output. They are targetting industrial users as customers.
Re:Doesn't the sun shine in Singapore? (Score:5, Informative)
There's a lot to unpack in your post. Firstly do you know how big Singapore is? China just connected a solar farm to the grid that is larger than the entire country. Yes literally, Xinjiang solar farm is 800 km^2 in surface area, while all of Singapore is 734 km^2.
Secondly the house idea is great but Singapore doesn't have houses. Literally 4.8% of the population has their own roof over their head. The rest live in apartments. It's an incredibly population dense place where nearly the entire population has no option to install solar.
Thirdly Singapore is not that sunny. It has a tropical climate with lots of rain and averages only 5.5 hours of sunlight a day, compared to Darwin (near where they want to build this plant) with 8.5 hours. That is a huge difference in capacity factor for a solar farm.
Re: Doesn't the sun shine in Singapore? (Score:2)
Surprisingly, Singapore is not full of single-family homes, and as an island, space is at a premium.
It's hard to believe that there's no where else Singapore could source electricity from than 2,600 miles away. I mean, stick a pin in the Capitol of Singapore on a globe, then attach a scale 2,600 mile string to it and see where the sting reaches as you spin it around the globe...
This is the same distance as between California and Hawaii (2,450 miles), why did it never occur to Hawaiians to just 'run an exten
So all it'll take is one anchor "accidentally" dra (Score:3)
over the cable, and all that money goes up on a little puff of boiled-off seawater?
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There will be a big divot out of the anchor too. The water will flash to steam and that won't conduct very well so the anchor and chain will get it next.
The breaker to stop a mega volt DC circuit must be impressive. There's no zero crossing to quench the arc.
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They armour the cables to make them resilient to that sort of thing, and try to locate them away from shipping lanes. Stick a few buoys where it's coming ashore.
As for deliberate attacks, as well as having surveillance equipment along the cable, yes this is a developing area of national security. It affects things like internet cables too.
Re: So all it'll take is one anchor "accidentally" (Score:2)
Unless you're particularly gullible, a prolonged internet outage will not cause your food to spoil or your dirty laundry to pile up.
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over the cable, and all that money goes up on a little puff of boiled-off seawater?
Nope, due to the electrolysis it would be a cloud of hydrogen and oxygen.
Can you say 'boom'?
UK and Europe (Score:2)
Odd... (Score:2)
They want to run a 2,600 mile/4,000 KM cable to direct 2 GW of solar electricity to Singapore?
Well, as the source is solar, that means it will only be offering Singapore those 2 GWs of power during daylight hours...
As I understand it, a 1 GW nuclear power plant requires less than 2 square miles of land [nei.org] - is Singapore so over-crowded they can't find a suitable patch of land to build a nuclear power plant? (I contend a 1 GW power plant that operates 24/7 is about the same as a 2 GW feedline that only operates