Cannon-Brookes’ Sun Cable picks Tasmania for manufacturing site
Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Sun Cable, the $40 billion project aiming to transport solar power from the Northern Territory to Singapore, said it planned to manufacture the power cables itself at a specialised new facility in Tasmania.
The high-voltage subsea cable manufacturing facility would be opened in Bell Bay, a port north of Launceston, which is in Tasmanian Deputy Premier Michael Ferguson’s Bass electorate.
Sun Cable is destined to send solar power from the Northern Territory to Singapore. Artist’s impression
“Sun Cable’s manufacturing facility would inject billions into the Tasmanian economy,” Mr Ferguson said. The company trumpeted that it would also create hundreds of jobs in the state, which has the highest unemployment rate nationally.
The site was chosen in part because of its rail transport links, access to a deep-water port and the 25MW to 40MW of renewable energy needed to power the factory, the company said. If it passes approval processes it will include workshops, a customised port facility and a tower for the vertical manufacturing processes needed for construction of the cables.
“The construction of a purpose-built facility will help solve global supply constraints of [high voltage] subsea cables,” the company said in a statement. “Currently, all advanced [high voltage] subsea cable facilities are located in the northern hemisphere.”
The project, officially the Australia-Asia PowerLink, involves a proposed 20-gigawatt solar farm near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, an 800-kilometre overhead transmission line to Darwin, a high-voltage undersea cable for the 4300-kilometre link to Singapore, and converter sites in Darwin and Singapore.
Jeremy Kwong-Law, chief executive of Grok Ventures, Mr
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