15 ms·

Australia fast-tracks plan to send solar power to Singapore

96 points by riffraff 6y ago

iso1210 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_... 10GW plant with a 30GWh battery. The enormous South Australia battery Musk put in is about 125MWh - 0.5% of that size.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  Imagine if the whole United States had the geography of Nevada, and you'll see how attractive solar is to Australia.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    I'd be willing to give up Vegas to turn Nevada into a giant solar farm.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Vegas is tiny compared to Nevada. You can have both. Nevada has lots of rocky terrain and winter snows, though, so much wouldn't be usable.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      The electrical power of the entire USA could be supplied by a PV station much smaller than Nevada. In the desert southwest you can average 6 kW-h/day/m^2 over a full year. Nation consumes approximately 4.2 PW-h/year. Therefore you need about 2 billion square meters of PV panels (2E9 x 6E3 x 365.25 =~ 4.4E15). That's an area of only 45 km per side (45000 x 45000 > 2E9). Nevada is about 500km wide and has an area of almost 300 billion square meters. So you'd need about 1% of Nevada to power the whole country.
      - lostlogin 6y ago
        One decent hailstorm or other extreme weather event would have quite the impact.
- gumby 6y ago
  Not to say batteries aren’t crucial, but you are comparing apples and oranges. That battery is only used for a very small peak / corner case and at least when I looked at the numbers last year hadn’t yet paid for its cost, despite some breathless claims. I do expect it to pay off though. The entire demand for a battery like that for a country like Australia is probably one unit. And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. It was a good PR stunt, but doesn’t really teach anything special.
  - ggm 6y ago
    It's been a lot more than a PR stunt, it's alerted the community to severe market distorting pricing practices and saved the state millions. It's already running in profit on the part which is not contracted to prevent bidding wars and it's being extended physically. It did have a huge PR element in its deployment but it's real, and it does a real job. It's role in frequency stabilisation stopped potential blackouts when long lines to NSW and Victoria died. (Islanding SA and potentially causing rolling blackouts from frequency instability)
  - nmfisher 6y ago
    > And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. It was installed in South Australia because the whole state suffered a blackout in 2016 from an overloaded transmission network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout The other Australian states didn't have the pressing need, but I don't see why it wouldn't be equally feasible.
  - nl 6y ago
    > when I looked at the numbers last year hadn’t yet paid for its cost, despite some breathless claims. Well.. of course? 2 years payoff would seem unbelievably fast for any infrastructure project. It did save $40M last year alone though (the project cost $86M). > The entire demand for a battery like that for a country like Australia is probably one unit. And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. Err.. no. There are around 40 proposed or signed projects in Australia larger than that battery. Here is a signed one being built now with a 400 MWh battery: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/26/australia-approves-720-mw-solar-farm-coupled-with-massive-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/26/australia-approves-72... The Lake Bonney 50MWh battery has been around for nearly 2 years now: https://www.infigenenergy.com/our-assets/firming-assets/ https://www.infigenenergy.com/our-assets/firming-assets/ Approved 600MWh project in Geelong: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/07/australia-to-host-600-mw-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/07/australia-to-host-600... Another 14 projects here in NSW alone (many of which are pumped hydro or compressed air or other interesting forms of storage): https://reneweconomy.com.au/fourteen-new-big-battery-storage-projects-proposed-for-nsw-37202/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/fourteen-new-big-battery-storage...
- briffle 6y ago
  It would be interesting to see those huge tesla batteries on a large ship,(like a retired oil supertanker) charging at one point, and discharging at the destination. Leave enough to power the ship back home, and just have several of them. Probably not as efficient as power lines, but could go to multiple destinations.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - teruakohatu 6y ago
    Singapore is already supplied with energy from ships (natural gas). So energy density will determine how many ships would be required. Depending on conversion efficiency, we are talking 50-150x as many lipo ships as natural gas ships. If Singapore only needed one natural gas very large super tanker, we would need to increase the global feet of super tankers by 7-20% just to ship electrical energy to Singapore.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      Lets do the math: Cheap LFP batteries get around 160-170wh/kg. Largest supertankers have net tonnage of around 250000. 250000000 * 170 = 42.5GWH. Quite respectable. Karadeniz (the biggest floating powerplant operator) has actually floated the idea.
      - Reason077 6y ago
        Another option for "shipping electricity" is compressed hydrogen. Electricity + water goes in at one end (electrolysis), then converts back to electricity + water at the other (fuel cells). Hydrogen has significant inefficiencies and conversion losses compared to batteries, but the energy density is much higher (up to 40,000 Wh/kg)
        lostlogin 6y ago
        There is mention in this thread of solar power prices going negative for suppliers at times. This would make suggestions like this even more favourable.
iandanforth 6y ago
Can someone break down some numbers here for me? What kind of voltage do you need to move that distance? Will this create huge magnetic fields along the cable under the ocean? (Yes I know almost nothing about electricity :)
- bob1029 6y ago
  They're using HVDC technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
  - rjsw 6y ago
    And Australia already has experience [1] of building that type of link. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      And Australia already has experience [1] of building that type of link. And according to your link, Australia's Basslink is owned by the government of Singapore. So that helps explain why they aren't afraid to do this. They've done it before.
    - ggm 6y ago
      Which had extended breakage: they ran it "hot" and remediation was expensive.
    - Reason077 6y ago
      Basslink is a fairly run-of-the-mill HVDC interconnector by world standards at 500 MW and 370 km. The longest undersea interconnector currently under construction is the North Sea Link between the UK and Norway (700 km, 1400 MW): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link At 3700 km, Australia-ASEAN would be far beyond the length of anything that has been built or considered to date!
  - andi999 6y ago
newyankee 6y ago
I wonder if a self sustaining solar plant can be set up in a desert with a factory powered by solar energy manufacturing solar panels with the sand and then being installed piece by piece. The stuff that will be needed to be brought from outside will be water (if a lot is needed), aluminum and concrete for the support structure and other metals in the solar panel. Surely a crazy project converting the hypothetical 100 miles x 100 miles square in Nevada or some other desert might be more feasible. It is okay even if this takes 10 years as long as the process is made sustainable to the extent possible.
- 01100011 6y ago
  Why do you need concrete? Can't you just sinter the sand grains together?
  - avmich 6y ago
    Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8 A popular video a few years ago which demonstrate, uhm, a 3D printing of models out of sand.
    - 01100011 6y ago
      Yeah, exactly. I love that video. I wish someone would combine the wind powered sculptures of Theo Jansen with a solar sinterer. Let them roam the sahara and turn it back into solid ground... or buildings and monuments.
- blargmaster33 6y ago
  Solar panels ARE NOT MADE FTOM SAND! The silicon used is forced from hyper pure mines and refined further from there! Manufacturing solar panels are one of the dirtiest industrial processes we have!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pjc50 6y ago
gumby 6y ago
Compare to DESERTEC, a plan to send power from North African solar farms under the Mediterranean to Europe with huge DC cables. They’ve been at it a while and I haven’t seen any signed of progress in a decade. It’s possible AU+SG May have more organizational success. Only two players, both OECD countries. But the technical hurdles remain immense. https://www.desertec.org/ https://www.desertec.org/
- threatripper 6y ago
  Problem is the fragile political situation in North Africa and the reluctance of the European militaries to ensure stability with force.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Have you been watching French moves in Africa as of late?
    - samvher 6y ago
      Would you mind elaborating on what you’re referring to? I’m quite curious.
      - pjc50 6y ago
        Beau Geste? Battle of Algiers? No I've no idea either.
      - lhpz 6y ago
        In 2013, the President of Mali asked France for help in stopping an attack on the capital Bamako by Islamic groups from the North of the country, whose goal was to establish a second Islamic state in the Sahel region, modeled after the Islamic State of Iraq which was developing at that same time. Four fighter jets were sent from France to stop the attackers as they were driving down south in pickups and were just a few hours away from taking the capital Bamako. 7 years later, the French forces are still on the ground, trying to help in stabilizing not only Mali, but also the whole Sahel region. With little stabilization success so far, but a second Islamic state in this area was avoided thanks to this intervention. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane
aaron695 6y ago
This makes no sense, with Atlassian being involved I'd double down on that statement. But it's actually very cool. Like sending a person to the moon it pushes science forward. It's not another dumb shove more solar panels on houses idea. It allows Australia a lot of power over Singapore and the region which is good for them. I guess the question is what's the side ways difference between NT and Singapore? It's a one and half hour time zone difference. How much peak/off peak/day time advantage do they get with the the different sun times. Why this over Perth? (I'd guess it's a simple power lines in the ocean is cheaper)
- jacques_chester 6y ago
  > Why this over Perth? 1. Darwin is thousands of kilometres closer. 2. Laying submarine cables from Darwin to Singapore has been done more than once, it's a known route.
  - aaron695 6y ago
    Sorry, I was in-specific, I meant if this is a good idea why not install the infrastructure in country from Darwin east or west to Perth or Cairns over Singapore.
    - jacques_chester 6y ago
      Out of potential markets in South East Asia or on the rim of the Indian Ocean, Singapore is the wealthiest and easiest to do business with.
    - rbg246 6y ago
      Politics I would suspect would prohibit this sort of investment in infrastructure for Australian markets.
- tomglynch 6y ago
  Interesting point - laying cables along a circle of latitude with a 4 hour time difference would mean the peak solar power at one location would power the other locations peak usage (6pm - 9pm). However, a 4 hour time difference is pretty substantial in terms of length of cables. I wonder if Australia could do this between Perth and the South East (Melbourne, Sydney).
jiggawatts 6y ago
Did anyone notice how cheap this is? Ten gigawatts at AUD $16B is roughly the same as 1 GW per USD $1B. Compare that to, say, a nuclear power plant, where a single 1 GW plant might cost five to ten billion after all of the approvals and the interest on the loan. If the price estimate is correct, Singapore would be crazy not to do it. The only issue I see is the risk of cable cuts and future geopolitical changes. Unfortunately, within Australia, coal is currently so cheap that even low-cost solar can't really compete.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  1 GW per billion dollars is dirt-cheap compared to solar power in America, too. Thinking of two of the largest PV installations in California. One was $2.4 billion for 550 MW and another was $1 billion for 130 MW.
- cbo100 6y ago
  Just pointing out the article had already converted AUD$22B into US$16B. (Not sure if that was updated since you posted) Still using your other numbers, seems like a bargain, even at US$1.6B/GW
- hokkos 6y ago
  That is a 10GW solar array, at 22% capacity factor, so comparable to 2 VVER-1200 with a $12B contract like Rooppur, also the solar panels/batteries will last 20-25 years and the VVER 60.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    > also the solar panels/batteries will last 20-25 years and the VVER 60 The solar array and battery storage (all of which can be recycled today with existing recycling techniques) will be built on time, begin generating on time, and will generate no nuclear waste nor require fuel (besides sunlight) during its operating lifetime. It takes over 10 years to build a VVER-1200 reactor [1] (any fission reactor, really), if you can even get the reactor to the finish line. [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First-VVER-1200-reactor-enters-commercial-operation-02031701.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First-VVER-1200-reacto...
grizzles 6y ago
This is a political project. It's difficult to consider it otherwise in a rational decision making context. Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. Since the guys financing it have no qualms about fronting this project obviously Singapore is keen to fund this project as a customer but wants to be seen for some reason as a reluctant buyer.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. And they are not interested in a cable to Indonesia either. Even an overland "transit" from a third country was refused by them.
- culturestate 6y ago
  > Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. This was actually a plan years ago[1], but they couldn’t identify an island that they found suitable for building/reclamation and which met the 30km setback requirements for a nuclear plant. 1. https://mothership.sg/2018/08/lee-kuan-yew-nuclear-power-plant-pedra-branca/ https://mothership.sg/2018/08/lee-kuan-yew-nuclear-power-pla...
  - nl 6y ago
    And given the number of tsunamis in the region and the specific example of Fukushima it's pretty clear why they don't want to compromise on that requirement.
- skissane 6y ago
  > Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that To anyone who knows the history of Singapore, it is obvious why (and you quite possibly already know all this, but I'm sure many other people reading this don't). Singapore became independent because the Malaysian government wanted to introduce "affirmative action" laws which discriminated against ethnic minorities, especially ethnic Chinese. Singapore was the only state of Malaysia with an ethnic Chinese majority, and was fundamentally opposed to such laws. The Malaysian federal government's response was to expel Singapore from Malaysia and force it to become an independent country, so that it would be free to impose these laws on the rest of Malaysia without Singapore's opposition. And Singapore has never trusted Malaysia since.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

96 points by riffraff 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_... 10GW plant with a 30GWh battery. The enormous South Australia battery Musk put in is about 125MWh - 0.5% of that size.

microcolonel 6y ago
Imagine if the whole United States had the geography of Nevada, and you'll see how attractive solar is to Australia.
- dylan604 6y ago
  I'd be willing to give up Vegas to turn Nevada into a giant solar farm.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Vegas is tiny compared to Nevada. You can have both. Nevada has lots of rocky terrain and winter snows, though, so much wouldn't be usable.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    The electrical power of the entire USA could be supplied by a PV station much smaller than Nevada. In the desert southwest you can average 6 kW-h/day/m^2 over a full year. Nation consumes approximately 4.2 PW-h/year. Therefore you need about 2 billion square meters of PV panels (2E9 x 6E3 x 365.25 =~ 4.4E15). That's an area of only 45 km per side (45000 x 45000 > 2E9). Nevada is about 500km wide and has an area of almost 300 billion square meters. So you'd need about 1% of Nevada to power the whole country.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      One decent hailstorm or other extreme weather event would have quite the impact.
gumby 6y ago
Not to say batteries aren’t crucial, but you are comparing apples and oranges. That battery is only used for a very small peak / corner case and at least when I looked at the numbers last year hadn’t yet paid for its cost, despite some breathless claims. I do expect it to pay off though. The entire demand for a battery like that for a country like Australia is probably one unit. And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. It was a good PR stunt, but doesn’t really teach anything special.
- ggm 6y ago
  It's been a lot more than a PR stunt, it's alerted the community to severe market distorting pricing practices and saved the state millions. It's already running in profit on the part which is not contracted to prevent bidding wars and it's being extended physically. It did have a huge PR element in its deployment but it's real, and it does a real job. It's role in frequency stabilisation stopped potential blackouts when long lines to NSW and Victoria died. (Islanding SA and potentially causing rolling blackouts from frequency instability)
- nmfisher 6y ago
  > And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. It was installed in South Australia because the whole state suffered a blackout in 2016 from an overloaded transmission network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout The other Australian states didn't have the pressing need, but I don't see why it wouldn't be equally feasible.
- nl 6y ago
  > when I looked at the numbers last year hadn’t yet paid for its cost, despite some breathless claims. Well.. of course? 2 years payoff would seem unbelievably fast for any infrastructure project. It did save $40M last year alone though (the project cost $86M). > The entire demand for a battery like that for a country like Australia is probably one unit. And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. Err.. no. There are around 40 proposed or signed projects in Australia larger than that battery. Here is a signed one being built now with a 400 MWh battery: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/26/australia-approves-720-mw-solar-farm-coupled-with-massive-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/26/australia-approves-72... The Lake Bonney 50MWh battery has been around for nearly 2 years now: https://www.infigenenergy.com/our-assets/firming-assets/ https://www.infigenenergy.com/our-assets/firming-assets/ Approved 600MWh project in Geelong: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/07/australia-to-host-600-mw-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/07/australia-to-host-600... Another 14 projects here in NSW alone (many of which are pumped hydro or compressed air or other interesting forms of storage): https://reneweconomy.com.au/fourteen-new-big-battery-storage-projects-proposed-for-nsw-37202/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/fourteen-new-big-battery-storage...
briffle 6y ago
It would be interesting to see those huge tesla batteries on a large ship,(like a retired oil supertanker) charging at one point, and discharging at the destination. Leave enough to power the ship back home, and just have several of them. Probably not as efficient as power lines, but could go to multiple destinations.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  Singapore is already supplied with energy from ships (natural gas). So energy density will determine how many ships would be required. Depending on conversion efficiency, we are talking 50-150x as many lipo ships as natural gas ships. If Singapore only needed one natural gas very large super tanker, we would need to increase the global feet of super tankers by 7-20% just to ship electrical energy to Singapore.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Lets do the math: Cheap LFP batteries get around 160-170wh/kg. Largest supertankers have net tonnage of around 250000. 250000000 * 170 = 42.5GWH. Quite respectable. Karadeniz (the biggest floating powerplant operator) has actually floated the idea.
    - Reason077 6y ago
      Another option for "shipping electricity" is compressed hydrogen. Electricity + water goes in at one end (electrolysis), then converts back to electricity + water at the other (fuel cells). Hydrogen has significant inefficiencies and conversion losses compared to batteries, but the energy density is much higher (up to 40,000 Wh/kg)
      - lostlogin 6y ago
        There is mention in this thread of solar power prices going negative for suppliers at times. This would make suggestions like this even more favourable.

iandanforth 6y ago

Can someone break down some numbers here for me? What kind of voltage do you need to move that distance? Will this create huge magnetic fields along the cable under the ocean? (Yes I know almost nothing about electricity :)

bob1029 6y ago
They're using HVDC technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
- rjsw 6y ago
  And Australia already has experience [1] of building that type of link. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    And Australia already has experience [1] of building that type of link. And according to your link, Australia's Basslink is owned by the government of Singapore. So that helps explain why they aren't afraid to do this. They've done it before.
  - ggm 6y ago
    Which had extended breakage: they ran it "hot" and remediation was expensive.
  - Reason077 6y ago
    Basslink is a fairly run-of-the-mill HVDC interconnector by world standards at 500 MW and 370 km. The longest undersea interconnector currently under construction is the North Sea Link between the UK and Norway (700 km, 1400 MW): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link At 3700 km, Australia-ASEAN would be far beyond the length of anything that has been built or considered to date!
- andi999 6y ago

newyankee 6y ago

I wonder if a self sustaining solar plant can be set up in a desert with a factory powered by solar energy manufacturing solar panels with the sand and then being installed piece by piece. The stuff that will be needed to be brought from outside will be water (if a lot is needed), aluminum and concrete for the support structure and other metals in the solar panel. Surely a crazy project converting the hypothetical 100 miles x 100 miles square in Nevada or some other desert might be more feasible. It is okay even if this takes 10 years as long as the process is made sustainable to the extent possible.

01100011 6y ago
Why do you need concrete? Can't you just sinter the sand grains together?
- avmich 6y ago
  Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8 A popular video a few years ago which demonstrate, uhm, a 3D printing of models out of sand.
  - 01100011 6y ago
    Yeah, exactly. I love that video. I wish someone would combine the wind powered sculptures of Theo Jansen with a solar sinterer. Let them roam the sahara and turn it back into solid ground... or buildings and monuments.
blargmaster33 6y ago
Solar panels ARE NOT MADE FTOM SAND! The silicon used is forced from hyper pure mines and refined further from there! Manufacturing solar panels are one of the dirtiest industrial processes we have!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 6y ago

gumby 6y ago

Compare to DESERTEC, a plan to send power from North African solar farms under the Mediterranean to Europe with huge DC cables. They’ve been at it a while and I haven’t seen any signed of progress in a decade. It’s possible AU+SG May have more organizational success. Only two players, both OECD countries. But the technical hurdles remain immense. https://www.desertec.org/ https://www.desertec.org/

threatripper 6y ago
Problem is the fragile political situation in North Africa and the reluctance of the European militaries to ensure stability with force.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Have you been watching French moves in Africa as of late?
  - samvher 6y ago
    Would you mind elaborating on what you’re referring to? I’m quite curious.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      Beau Geste? Battle of Algiers? No I've no idea either.
    - lhpz 6y ago
      In 2013, the President of Mali asked France for help in stopping an attack on the capital Bamako by Islamic groups from the North of the country, whose goal was to establish a second Islamic state in the Sahel region, modeled after the Islamic State of Iraq which was developing at that same time. Four fighter jets were sent from France to stop the attackers as they were driving down south in pickups and were just a few hours away from taking the capital Bamako. 7 years later, the French forces are still on the ground, trying to help in stabilizing not only Mali, but also the whole Sahel region. With little stabilization success so far, but a second Islamic state in this area was avoided thanks to this intervention. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane

aaron695 6y ago

This makes no sense, with Atlassian being involved I'd double down on that statement. But it's actually very cool. Like sending a person to the moon it pushes science forward. It's not another dumb shove more solar panels on houses idea. It allows Australia a lot of power over Singapore and the region which is good for them. I guess the question is what's the side ways difference between NT and Singapore? It's a one and half hour time zone difference. How much peak/off peak/day time advantage do they get with the the different sun times. Why this over Perth? (I'd guess it's a simple power lines in the ocean is cheaper)

jacques_chester 6y ago
> Why this over Perth? 1. Darwin is thousands of kilometres closer. 2. Laying submarine cables from Darwin to Singapore has been done more than once, it's a known route.
- aaron695 6y ago
  Sorry, I was in-specific, I meant if this is a good idea why not install the infrastructure in country from Darwin east or west to Perth or Cairns over Singapore.
  - jacques_chester 6y ago
    Out of potential markets in South East Asia or on the rim of the Indian Ocean, Singapore is the wealthiest and easiest to do business with.
  - rbg246 6y ago
    Politics I would suspect would prohibit this sort of investment in infrastructure for Australian markets.
tomglynch 6y ago
Interesting point - laying cables along a circle of latitude with a 4 hour time difference would mean the peak solar power at one location would power the other locations peak usage (6pm - 9pm). However, a 4 hour time difference is pretty substantial in terms of length of cables. I wonder if Australia could do this between Perth and the South East (Melbourne, Sydney).

jiggawatts 6y ago

Did anyone notice how cheap this is? Ten gigawatts at AUD $16B is roughly the same as 1 GW per USD $1B. Compare that to, say, a nuclear power plant, where a single 1 GW plant might cost five to ten billion after all of the approvals and the interest on the loan. If the price estimate is correct, Singapore would be crazy not to do it. The only issue I see is the risk of cable cuts and future geopolitical changes. Unfortunately, within Australia, coal is currently so cheap that even low-cost solar can't really compete.

jeffbee 6y ago
1 GW per billion dollars is dirt-cheap compared to solar power in America, too. Thinking of two of the largest PV installations in California. One was $2.4 billion for 550 MW and another was $1 billion for 130 MW.
cbo100 6y ago
Just pointing out the article had already converted AUD$22B into US$16B. (Not sure if that was updated since you posted) Still using your other numbers, seems like a bargain, even at US$1.6B/GW
hokkos 6y ago
That is a 10GW solar array, at 22% capacity factor, so comparable to 2 VVER-1200 with a $12B contract like Rooppur, also the solar panels/batteries will last 20-25 years and the VVER 60.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  > also the solar panels/batteries will last 20-25 years and the VVER 60 The solar array and battery storage (all of which can be recycled today with existing recycling techniques) will be built on time, begin generating on time, and will generate no nuclear waste nor require fuel (besides sunlight) during its operating lifetime. It takes over 10 years to build a VVER-1200 reactor [1] (any fission reactor, really), if you can even get the reactor to the finish line. [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First-VVER-1200-reactor-enters-commercial-operation-02031701.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First-VVER-1200-reacto...

grizzles 6y ago

This is a political project. It's difficult to consider it otherwise in a rational decision making context. Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. Since the guys financing it have no qualms about fronting this project obviously Singapore is keen to fund this project as a customer but wants to be seen for some reason as a reluctant buyer.

baybal2 6y ago
> Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. And they are not interested in a cable to Indonesia either. Even an overland "transit" from a third country was refused by them.
culturestate 6y ago
> Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands. This was actually a plan years ago[1], but they couldn’t identify an island that they found suitable for building/reclamation and which met the 30km setback requirements for a nuclear plant. 1. https://mothership.sg/2018/08/lee-kuan-yew-nuclear-power-plant-pedra-branca/ https://mothership.sg/2018/08/lee-kuan-yew-nuclear-power-pla...
- nl 6y ago
  And given the number of tsunamis in the region and the specific example of Fukushima it's pretty clear why they don't want to compromise on that requirement.
skissane 6y ago
> Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that To anyone who knows the history of Singapore, it is obvious why (and you quite possibly already know all this, but I'm sure many other people reading this don't). Singapore became independent because the Malaysian government wanted to introduce "affirmative action" laws which discriminated against ethnic minorities, especially ethnic Chinese. Singapore was the only state of Malaysia with an ethnic Chinese majority, and was fundamentally opposed to such laws. The Malaysian federal government's response was to expel Singapore from Malaysia and force it to become an independent country, so that it would be free to impose these laws on the rest of Malaysia without Singapore's opposition. And Singapore has never trusted Malaysia since.

deleted 6y ago

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