Australia’s biggest solar farm has been approved with the potential to power three million homes, many of them expected to be in another country.
The Sun Cable Australia-Asia Power Link is expected to generate 4GW of renewable energy through a solar farm in the Northern Territory.
The 12,000-hectare solar farm is bound for a former pastoral station near Tennant Creek.
The approval by federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek on Wednesday includes an 800 km transmission line to Darwin and an underwater cable to the end of Australian waters.
The project will boost the NT economy as well as elevating Australia’s renewable status globally, Ms Plibersek said.
“It will be the largest solar precinct in the world – and heralds Australia as the world leader in green energy.
“Australians have a choice between a renewable energy transition that’s already underway creating jobs and driving down prices; or paying for an expensive nuclear fantasy that may never happen.”
She said the project would deliver almost six times more power than a 700MW large nuclear reactor could deliver, criticising what she called “an expensive nuclear fantasy” being pitched by the opposition.
“We have no idea what the equivalent to (Opposition leader) Peter Dutton’s anti-renewables nuclear plan might be because there are no details other than it being too slow and too expensive,” she said.
The Sun Cable project had early support from billionaires Andrew Forest and Mike Cannon-Brookes, with the latter winning the battle to acquire it after it was placed in voluntary administration in January 2023.
The pair had disagreed over whether the project’s planned transmission of electricity to Singapore was viable, with Cannon-Brookes confident it was.
By Jack Gramenz in Sydney
Source: AAP
