Plans to export solar power to other countries is not a new concept and the most famous example was Desertec where a plan was to build massive solar farms in the Sahara to supply power through undersea cables to Europe. This plan which saw a lot of traction and planning in the early 2010s never came into fruition and remained on the drawing board despite being backed by major companies such as ABB, Siemens, etc.
With solar costs falling by almost 80% over the last decade, exporting solar power may not seem such a far-fetched idea anymore. India recently unveiled a vision for a one-world one grid plan where countries could be connected through a massive grid which would supply solar power from sun-facing countries to countries which were facing away from the sun. This would solve the intermittency problem of solar energy. The Nordic Grid is a successful example of how countries can manage to increase their RE capacities by exporting power to neighboring countries.
A developer in Australia wants to build a 10 GW farm in Northern Territory which could supply power to Singapore through Indonesia. Note Singapore is an island which does not have much land to allocate to the large fossil or renewable energy power plants. Given the preciousness of land, it makes sense for Singapore to import power from countries which have abundant land which is unused. Australia gets very good solar insolation and it also has millions of acres of wasteland. It makes great sense for these two countries to partner together in power especially as it also helps fight climate change and reduce pollution.
The proposed Sun Cable project will also have 20-30 GWh of storage and transport power through a 3,800-km high voltage direct current submarine cables and cover 20% of Singapore’s power demand. The plant should be fully built up by 2027. Note these giant project often fail due to the complexity as well as due to the financial weakness of the developers. Building such a huge project will require multiple partners which can result in diversifying risk as well as bringing in the strengths for different parties.
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