Singapore Approves 2,600-Mile Undersea Cable to Import Solar Energy from Australia (newatlas.com) 40
"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, 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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just ask Southern California
Just ask Oregon [wikipedia.org]. They have to put in what it takes to make up for the losses. California, as usual, is blissfully ignorant of what the rest of the country is doing to prop them up.
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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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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:4, 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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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
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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 t
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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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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?
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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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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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.
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.
So all it'll take is one anchor "accidentally" dra (Score:2)
over the cable, and all that money goes up on a little puff of boiled-off seawater?