Sun Cable joins forces to find ways to build a green grid across Asia

Sun Cable – the ambitious solar and storage developer backed by billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest – has set up a new partnership to pursue an interconnected “green grid” to transmit renewable electricity across Asia.

Green grids are carbon-free electricity grids that transmitting power generated from renewable resources such as wind, hydropower and solar energy.

Sun Cable is behind the massive Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPowerLink) proposal, which would create the world’s biggest solar farm (around 20GW) and the biggest battery installation (up to 42GWh) with the intention of exporting much of that power to Singapore via a 4,200km sub sea link.

Sun Cable says that if that project can go ahead, that idea can be replicated in other parts of Asia, and it sees regional green grids as a solution to power intermittency and affordable renewable power.

On Wednesday it announced that it had struck the new partnership with nine scientific and academic institutions culled from Australia and Singapore.

These include Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research and Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory, Sun Cable says the aim is to centralise grid research and boost innovation and policy change to support cross-.order renewable electricity trade and an integrated grid.

The group, called Asia Green Grid Network, has released research commissioned by Sun Cable that projects that by achieving 15% grid interconnection by 2040, around 3,335TWh  would be traded in Asia-Pacific annually.

To put that in context, Australia’s main grid consumes around 200TWh a year.

Importantly, the research says this level of green grid interconnection would save 3,070 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

The report also identifies technical opportunities to support a green grid in Asia, such as long-duration storage, microgrids, and voltage improvements on HVDC transmission.

“Cross-border trade of renewable electricity and grid integration is the cornerstone of a successful clean energy transition in Asia,” Fraser Thompson, Sun Cable’s Founder and chief strategy officer said in a statement.

“Sun Cable’s research shows the potential by 2040 for grid integration in the Asia Pacific to reduce carbon emissions by the equivalent of 8 per cent of current global emissions, create 870,000 jobs, and enable US$493 billion of traded electricity annually,” Thompson said.

The Australia-Asia PowerLink project has an estimated cost of $30 billion, and is potentially one of the biggest renewable energy infrastructure projects in the world.

It has already received endorsement from Infrastructure Australia which could pave the way for finance from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The company hopes to reach financial close in 2023, and start construction by 2024.