What Singapore really thinks of Australian solar power export plan

Australia and Singapore are neighbours, but not exactly close.

As the crow flies, the distance from Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, to the South-East Asian island nation is 3,400km — by most standards, a very long way.

And yet it is this distance over which an Australian energy company is vying to lay the world's longest subsea electrical cable in the hope of tapping into a green dream.

That company is Sun Cable, a renewable energy developer backed by Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Sun Cable aims to generate colossal amounts of solar power in the endless, sun-drenched expanses of Australia's Top End, supplying Singapore's 6 million consumers via a 4,300km transmission cable through the Indonesian archipelago.

"I'm not aware of too many other projects on this scale," said James Bowen, an energy and geopolitical analyst.

"I think we could safely call it a mega project."

Ambition without equal

Indeed, the exact scope of Sun Cable's $35 billion ambition is hard to comprehend.

It would involve building solar panels to produce up to 10 gigawatts across as much as 12,000 hectares — an area twice the size of Manhattan.

Battery storage on a similarly massive scale would back up the solar farm when the sun is not shining.

Electricity would be transported 800km from the desert to Darwin, where some of it would support the local grid.

The vast majority, however, would be sent onwards to Singapore.

There, Sun Cable would supply up to 1.75 gigawatts of power, or about a quarter of the country's typical demand.

Amid persistent questions about the feasibility of Sun Cable's grandiose plans, the ABC travelled to Singapore to speak to potential customers.

Puah Kok Keong, chief executive of the Singapore Energy Market Authority, is the regulator of the nation's power and gas industries and one of its most senior energy officials.

Puah said his country's energy needs were intense.

He said air-conditioning in the famously steamy climate runs around-the-clock while industry chews up as much as 80 per cent of power demand.

Added to the challenge of meeting that demand, he said Singapore wants to become carbon neutral.

Plus, Singapore is tiny — at fewer than 750 square kilometres, it is 13 times smaller than greater Melbourne.

"We have set for ourselves a goal of reaching net zero by the year 2050," Puah told the ABC.

"You can imagine for a small country like Singapore how difficult that can be."

'Cables, not pipelines'

Singapore, Puah said, was doing what it can within its own borders.

Solar panels are being installed everywhere — on roofs, on car parks and even on the city's reservoirs as floating installations.

But he acknowledged it was a strategy with severe limits.

Even with the feverish activity, Puah said solar only supplies about three per cent of Singapore's power, a figure unlikely to increase by much more than double.

To reach net zero by the middle of the century, he said Singapore had started to look further afield.

"We are also looking at importing electricity from around the region," he said.

"We have set for ourselves a target of importing up to around six gigawatts of clean energy from the region by the year 2035."

It is into this equation that Sun Cable hopes to insert itself.

Currently, Singapore gets about 95 per cent of its electricity from natural gas, more than half shipped into the country as liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The rest is sourced via pipelines from neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia.

Christophe Inglin from the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore said the island state would have to do with renewable electricity what it has long done with fossil fuels.

"We've imported the oil and gas," Inglin said.

"We can now import electrons.

"So instead of pipelines, we need copper cables. It's about transmission."

According to Inglin, Singapore already imports some electricity from Malaysia through a high-voltage transmission line, but these imports do not amount to much.

There are plans to dramatically increase the amount through a regional "super grid" that would much more closely weave together the electricity systems of South-East Asia.

Under such plans, Inglin said Singapore would be able to source hydro power from Laos, wind from Vietnam and huge amounts of solar from Malaysia and Indonesia.

"Without the regional grid, it wouldn't work," he said.

"So, it's very important.

"Obviously, the political will and the technology have always been there. They go round and round.

"But I think we're seeing breakthroughs coming now. It's in the interests of both the exporting countries and the importing countries, Singapore."

Stretching for the sun

Inglin said a South-East Asian network does not preclude Sun Cable (which declined to be interviewed for this story).

Australia borders the region, but he said the company faced long odds.

"I think the Singapore government and the EMA keep a very open mind on that," he said.

"They say, 'if you can do it, bring it in … there's a market here for that'.

"Of course, they face enormous challenges. The sunshine is the least of them. They've got that.

"But how do you build that subsea cable for a viable enough price to bring it to Singapore? So, let's see."

Warnings about the viability of such an immensely long cable are not lost on observers.

Bowen, who is the industrial decarbonisation lead for Australia at the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said the theoretical neatness of the cable idea runs into harsh geopolitical realities.

Besides being six times longer than the world's longest subsea electrical cable — the Viking Link between Denmark and England — Bowen said there were arguably greater risks.

For one, it would run through the waters of another country, Indonesia, which is also one of the globe's most seismically active.

For another, he said Singapore may be unwilling to rely on a single cable responsible for the supply of so much of its electricity.

"Any time you have a single piece of infrastructure a country would be dependent on for its energy … there are risks to interdiction," Bowen said.

"We've always seen this around energy in general.

"Energy is just an inherently geopolitical concern, and countries are very careful … about how they calibrate their energy security strategies."

Puah from the Energy Market Authority echoed the comments.

"I think Sun Cable certainly faces quite a lot of challenges," Puah said.

"The distance, besides increasing the cost of the transmission, also means that the regulatory approvals needed for the path where the cable may come by from Australia through Indonesia to Singapore will need a lot of regulatory approvals."

Cost and opportunity

Perhaps more than security, Bowen said costs may be a bigger risk for Sun Cable.

He said people — and countries — are capable of accepting risks to the supply of goods or services, but only for the right price.

"We talk about energy security as being all about the physical security of supply," he said.

"But cost is really a massive factor for most countries, and they will actually take on a lot of risk, including geopolitical risk … if they're assured of low-cost energy."

It was a view shared by Lu Ming Pang, a senior analyst with Rystad Energy based in Singapore.

Lu said Singapore, as one of the richest countries in the world, has fired the starter's gun on a race to provide it with clean energy over the coming decades.

In that race, he said Sun Cable was one horse.

"We do see the supply of renewable energy sources from countries in Indonesia and Malaysia who are willing to supply through shorter grids into Singapore," Lu said.

"So I think also the economics of having close-distance transmission also competes with the Sun Cable."

Despite this handicap, Lu said the dream of exporting solar power from a huge country such as Australia to a tiny, densely populated and wealthy country like Singapore was likely to be an enduring one.

"In the long run, maybe in 10 to 20 years, that might be a possibility," he said.

"I do think that it is a very big opportunity for Australian solar power to be sold into a high capital Singaporean market.

"The opportunity is there."

Puah Kok Keong, the head of Singapore's energy watchdog, was equally diplomatic.

Puah said the island nation was keeping an open mind and would be happy to take Sun Cable's power.

However, he cautioned it would not do so at any price.

"We will want to go for an energy source or energy technology that can check all the boxes of security, cost, and low carbon," Puah said.

"I think there's a good chance that [Sun Cable] can still happen. But as I said, there are challenges that we have to overcome."