Once completed, the Australia-Asia Power Link is expected to meet up to 15 percent of the city-state’s energy needs.
Australia has granted environmental approval for a $19 billion solar power project to export electricity to Singapore.
The Australia-Asia Power Link is expected to generate 6 GW of renewable energy, a third of which will be transmitted to the Southeast Asian city-state via a submarine cable.
SunCable, owned by billionaire software entrepreneur and climate activist Mike Cannon-Brookes, said the project would meet up to 15 percent of Singapore’s energy needs when completed in the early 2030s.
Australia’s Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said on Wednesday that the 12,000-hectare solar farm in the remote Northern Territory would create 14,300 jobs and transform Australia into a “renewable energy superpower”.
“This massive project is a generation-defining piece of infrastructure. It will be the world’s largest solar park – and will mark Australia as a global leader in green energy,” Plibersek said in a statement.
Plibersek’s office said the permit was subject to “strict conditions” to protect the natural environment. Among other things, the project must avoid the habitat of the greater bandicoot, a rabbit-like mammal that is considered endangered.
SunCable managing director Cameron Garnsworthy said the government’s decision was a vote of confidence in the project and the company as a “responsible steward of the local environment in the Northern Territory”.
“SunCable will now focus its efforts on the next phase of planning to advance the project towards a final investment decision, targeted by 2027,” Garnsworthy said in a statement.
Although the project has successfully passed environmental impact assessments in Australia, it still has to overcome numerous other regulatory hurdles, including assessment by authorities in Singapore and Indonesia.
The future of the project was thrown into question in January last year when SunCable was forced into voluntary insolvency amid a dispute between Cannon-Brookes and its billionaire backer Andrew Forrest over the direction of the company.
Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of US-Australian software company Atlassian, renewed the offer in May after a consortium led by him gained control of the company’s assets.
Energy is a politically sensitive issue in Australia. Despite the increasing use of renewable energy, coal and gas remain the main sources of electricity generation.
While both the ruling Labor Party (centre-left) and the opposition Liberal Party (centre-right) have committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, the parties disagree on the steps to achieve this goal.
In June, the Liberal Party proposed building the country’s first nuclear power plants, but Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese dismissed the proposal as a “thought bubble” with no precise cost.
“Australians have a choice between an energy transition that is already underway, creating jobs and lowering prices, and the option of paying for an expensive nuclear fantasy that may never become a reality,” Plibersek said.
