Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures and Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy have led a $210 million Series B capital raising round for investee company Sun Cable to develop its planned Darwin to Singapore renewable energy power cable.
Announcing the funding on 14 March, Sun Cable said the Australia-Asia Powerlink project will harness and store solar energy from the Northern Territory and transmit it to Darwin and Singapore via a high voltage direct current (HVDC) cable transmission system.
Cannon-Brookes said: “This brings Australia one step closer to realising our renewables exporting potential. We can power the world with clean energy and Sun Cable is harnessing that at scale. It’s a blueprint for how we export energy across the world.”
Forrest said: “Sun Cable’s vision will transform Australia’s capability to become a world-leading generator and exporter of renewable electricity and enable decarbonisation.”
The Australia-Asia PowerLink project is expected to facilitate large-scale industrial development through the electrification of new and existing industries as well as providing significant supply chain opportunities and supporting regional decarbonisation.
The project will comprise a 12,000-hectare solar generation and energy storage precinct near Elliott in the Northern Territory. The precinct will be able to supply 800MW of electricity day and night to Darwin via an overhead transmission line. From Darwin, a 4,200km undersea cable will have the capacity to take up to 2GW of power through Indonesia to Singapore.
Sun Cable Power founder and chief executive David Griffin said the Australia-Asia Powerlink would be fully funded by the new capital raise which would also advance other multi-gigawatt scale projects.
Squadron Energy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Forrest family’s investment vehicle Tattarang.
Image: Setting up a solar facility similar to that which will generate power for the Australia-Asia PowerLink project.