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The project I'm referring to is the Australia-Asia Power Link by Suncable[1]. It was supposed to be an AUD$30bn project, but I don't know the proper cost, but

The project I'm referring to is the Australia-Asia Power Link by Suncable[1]. It was supposed to be an AUD$30bn project, but I don't know the proper cost, but $30bn/4500km = $6.6k/meter. That includes the solar panels, and a massive battery too, as I understand it. It went into administration in January, because the backers disagreed about further funding for the project. Also, When I say "outside darwin" I didn't mean in the suburbs. It may not be obvious just looking at satellite maps, but large areas of that part of Australia are subject to seasonal flooding. If you're building a project like this, you need to pick higher ground to avoid it being flooded. They basically have two seasons: Wet, and Dry. During wet season, they still get plenty of sun. Also, large areas of that part of the world are protected National Parks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link

defrost 4y ago
It's more than a disagreement about funding, it's a disagreement about feasibility. Long HVDC lines are feasible, as are long HDVC lines across (some) sea floors. Even longer lines with intermittent stations across sea floors are feasible. What's pushing the engineering limits and the stability of forward capital funding is a single really long undersea HVDC cable crossing multiple fault lines in one of the more volcanic earthquake prone regions of the world with a few very deep trenches. There's no fallback in the quite probable case of disruption, no cheap way to add redundancy, and no cost effective way to deal with breakages. The kinds of milestones being missed that are alluded to in the wikipedia article are feasible engineering solutions to route challenges.