By Lewis Jackson
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A multi-billion dollar project to pipe solar-generated electricity 4,300 km (2,672 miles) to Singapore from Australia has received conditional approval from the island state’s energy market regulator, project owner SunCable said on Tuesday.
Singapore’s Energy Market Authority granted the conditional approval after a process to determine whether SunCable’s Australia-Asia PowerLink project was technically and commercially viable, the company said in a press release.
Owned by Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, SunCable aims to produce 6 gigawatts (GW) of electricity at a vast solar farm in Northern Australia and ship about a third of that to Singapore via undersea cable.
Suncable says the project will generate A$20 billion ($13 billion) in economic value for northern Australia.
However, the project has been dogged by questions over its viability and Cannon-Brookes took control after a dispute with fellow owner and Fortescue Metals billionaire founder Andrew Forrest over its prospects for success.
“Today’s announcement is a vote of confidence in the commercial and technical viability of our project,” SunCable International Interim CEO Mitesh Patel said in a statement.
SunCable said the approval meant it could pursue the next phase of development, including its partnership with Indonesia, whose waters the planned cable must run through. SunCable said it plans to spend $2.5 billion in Indonesia over the project’s life.
The company has invested A$270 million in project development across the three countries it said on Tuesday. A final investment decision is expected in 2027.
The project received environmental approval from Australia in August.
($1 = 1.4954 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Lewis Jackson, editing by Ed Osmond)
