Why the mega plan to send Australian solar to Asia (almost) flopped

[@DWPlanetA]

Do you think your country should be a part of a global supergrid, or do you prefer relying on local energy sources?

[@Aarush.A.S]

Well put a 7kw solar plant in your house is the best way I guess

[@Aarush.A.S]

If producers have problem we have problem world economic crisis potential

[@hillockfarm8404]

I prefer to need less power for starters. Second, long distance transport of power means you loose part of it i.e. you need to produce more to deliver the requested amount to the consumer. We need to stop needing more and more power or we'll run out of space and resources to make it.

[@wiseass2149]

I love the idea, but the execution would be hampered by geopolitics and bureaucratic nonsense.

[@VanillaMacaron551]

@@wiseass2149 Not to mention being located on about the most geologically unstable area of the planet.

[@Sussurrus]

Great vision, but for now how about Australia powering itself with renewables first? It's grid is as dirty as it gets.

[@dynamogaming4953]

😂same

[@stickynorth]

Yup. Domestic production should be the goal with exports as only secondary... Australia should also build commercial nuclear power plants using CANDU technology... Safe, simple, reliable... And the #2 way Canada generates power after hydro...

[@stevensmith797]

ya , if they can send power 12,000 k away , then why not connect all the states and territories to a grid , answer is more than likely , the gas and coal supplyers who hand over tons of money to both parties dont like the idea , and hence , no political will to do it

[@DeftPol]

The grid is rapidly changing. South Australia is already over 70 renewable and rooftop solar is at 36% of the entire population now - it’s moving fast. That’s incidentally also why you wouldn’t use the NT’s suncable project for the East Coast. There’s enough abundant solar closer to the major states and those projects are already being built out - it’s just the transmission that needs to follow, which is the whole point of the “rewiring the nation” initiative. This stuff is already happening. What Suncable was trying to do was take a region that didn’t make sense for the East Coast and see if it could built it out to supply our neighbours that are closer.

[@1968Christiaan]

@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket No totally wrong. Nuclear is THE most expensive option (Hinkley UK), it is not reliable as you think (France) will never be ready in time. Renewables plus batteries is happening now.

[@jb.9526]

I don't understand why such a project wouldn't aim first to power Australia with renewable energy. At present only 40% of the electricity in Australia comes from renewables. It would also avoid the technical issues of submarine cables and the potential sabotage risk of passing in third party territorial waters.

[@megapaul13]

Power price during the day in Australia goes negative due in part to the high level of rooftop solar. So it wouldn’t make much if any money at all in the Australian market

[@qjtvaddict]

Build a big grid

[@jonathanodude6660]

we dont have any storage. how will we power all our homes at night when it isnt windy? its much more efficient to ship it off when its burdening our grid.

[@CT-vm4gf]

@@jonathanodude6660The project involved battery storage.

[@jonathanodude6660]

@@CT-vm4gf “At present only 40% of the electricity in Australia comes from renewables.” A project like this won’t change that. Anyways, I don’t think the NT is connected to any other state grids, so it would still require HVDC interconnection and thousands of kilometres of cables.

[@jackred2362]

If anything sending solar power from Western to Eastern Australia would make much more sense, due to daylight gap. Western Australia would be daytime, and it would power the peak during the Eastern's evening. A similar thing is happening in China.

[@coffeebuzzz]

@@DavidKD2050 Transmission lines from west to east along the bight would also allow wind turbines built on the bight to feed in as well.

[@DavidKD2050]

@@coffeebuzzz yes, that’s something that we could leverage. A complete line-collection-generation could be built across is great land, Perth the western end. If each pillion was adorned with panels and little turbines, and others placed nearby in good locations, would it not be an economical option? Probably not, use to little distance to greet. But the USA has the potential to make it work with much bigger population.

[@jonathanodude6660]

@@DavidKD2050 a bigger population makes it easier. more people are using it so more people will pay for it. a lot is also built by private companies. perth does not have private energy distribution networks. we all pay via taxes. the technology required to build cabling that long and with minimal losses during transmission would be insanely expensive. interconnectors with HVDC might work but perth energy is much cheaper because its controlled by the state gov, so there is no incentive to the WA gov to pay for these lines; and the eastern states have private companies whos profits will be reduced if consumers bought WA electricity, so theres no incentive to them either.

[@DavidKD2050]

@@jonathanodude6660 good dump of facts, thanks. Yeah as I said, need larger population to make it worthwhile.

[@CT-vm4gf]

@@jonathanodude6660It would only take lines from Kalgoorlie to South Australia to join them up wouldn’t it?

[@chilliear]

My question is why go for Singapore when its so far away? Maybe hook up to the Indonesia mainland first and power Jakarta before heading to Singapore.

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

Laying that many power cables under the Indonesian sea. Also need permits and environmental impact

[@MalcolmRose-l3b]

@@carkawalakhatulistiwa Except Indonesia is going to want all those environmental impact surveys anyway for the cable crossing it's waters. Why not just do the "short" hop from NT to the Sunda Islands, run it along Java and Sumatra and then to Singapore? It could be a land cable for much of it's route which is easier to build than a sub-sea cable, and there's several cities in Indonesia which could be customers - new renewable projects in Indonesia could connect to the cable. Singapore could become a central point in the network with links North into Malaysia.

[@Petriiik]

maybe indonesia is not interested? maybe indonesia does not accept the cost of the electricity. Maybe indonesia can built own solar farms, without that cable? Maybe indonesia do not want to be reliable on australia when they can produce electricity at home.

[@jonathanodude6660]

its a singaporean venture. singapore asked. theyve involved indonesia but indonesia wants to join later on. the power plant isnt really big enough for indonesia though. there would need to be way more generation first, so thats what indonesia is likely to be waiting for.

[@Christoph1888]

Because Indonesia doesn't want to be dependent on Australia for it's energy

[@GustavSvard]

How about splitting this gigaproject into separate projects for: * Large scale solar power facilities with batteries in Australia. * (if needed: better grid to connect across Australia) * Power cables from Australia to Indonesia (especially Java) * Power cables connecting through Indonesia up to Sumatra & Borneo * Power cables from Indonesia to Singapore & Malaysia and to make those power cables possible it'd be good to have a factory making them in Australia or ASEAN. If doesn't all have to be in one project done by one company.

[@phrog2579]

They're all relying on one another anyway, all you have to do to realise this is make those points a point on the roadmap, especially for the cable laying portion. I think indonesia might look into tapping into the cable in the future but doesnt have plans for it in the short term. Thats kinda why they're allowing it to run through their waters in the first place. Secondly, it doesnt matter if you have a cable network spanning indonesia if you dont have the cable from australia ready. Its much more cost efficient and captially less intensive to have a smaller team and move at a slower pace, taking things one by one. All the ducks need to fall in line and having multiple subsidiaries will require more staff and some of them might not have great business cases which further increases drain on your investors wallet, in promise of future returns. They might be fine with the finances now, but when you turn up the tap and the tank drains faster than it fills, you are going to get cut off.

[@shmookins]

Interesting. But why not supply those cables to Australian cities first? That would be cheaper and would give the company time to learn and profit before the big stretch.

[@JBSbass]

you must first understand the cartels that the Australian Gov sold the state owned power grids to in the first place some 30 odd years ago, the guarantee of profits written into contracts and the absolute influence these mega corps have over the short term politicians and their ingrained parties to know why this will never happen. We are held to ransom with electricity and gas supply in this country even though past generations built and paid for the networks out of tax payer funds and the only chance we have of these power generators allowing their monopoly to fade is for the Australian tax payer to pay for it all over again with further guarantees for their existence. Its a rort of massive proportions.

[@herp_derpingson]

Australia is the largest exporter of coal. The coal lobby wont let it happen.

[@hughleyton693]

That is already being done, mainly in eastern Australia. We don't need to learn, we, at least some of us, already know how to do this sort or thing. . I have been involved with world wide undersea cables and significantly into HVDC power systems... . North Australia solar would not affect east Australia systems.

[@flutieflambert]

First adopters are always at the fringe. 720p Plasma screens used to cost $25K and they weren’t large. Now they’re huge, cheap, ubiquitous and 4K, not 1080p. When Coltrane and Parker first hit the music scene, everyone marveled that each did the impossible. Four years later everyone was imitating them. These cables are inevitable. Not if, but when.

[@Croz89]

I think energy security concerns will usually plague big single point inter-connector projects like this. The EU's idea for solar from the Sahara was even more risky considering the political instability in the region. It's one thing for friendly neighbors to synchronize their grids and send a couple GW back and forth as needed, but this is on another level. Hydrogen is one option, perhaps even synthetic hydrocarbons to take advantage of better energy density. Countries will want a strategic reserve of energy that can keep things going for a few weeks in case of disruption. That could be a massive battery or pumped storage facility, but then you're losing a lot of the cost advantages of a more stable renewable energy source than what can be produced domestically.

[@MalcolmRose-l3b]

As the network of inter-connectors is built out world wide it will add redundancy - this has already happened with telephone and internet connections. Then if Russia (or some other country) gets uppity it's an inconvenience but not a disaster as you just route around them as much as possible.

[@Croz89]

@@MalcolmRose-l3b Interconnectors by themselves will not solve the problem, you still need that surplus of energy available. It's all well and good to have a redundant connection, but if it can't make up for the loss it's not going to be enough. With the internet the worst that happens is interest speeds are throttled, with energy you get blackouts or rationing.

[@SisterSunny]

hydrogen isn't really a very good idea for energy security, since it's produced with natural gas (and green hydrogen is just mind-bogglingly uneconomical for the foreseeable future), which encounters the exact same problems as just... a fossil-fuel based grid

[@woodliceworm4565]

Interconnectors of this type are DC - synchronizing the grids is not required.

[@jonathanodude6660]

the point is that you still produce domestically, and then you sell when your energy is abundant and your neighbours is not, you buy when your energy is not abundant and your neighbours is, you store when both are abundant, and you pull from storage when neither are. you reduce both of your risks at the same time. japan wants to connect to russia, china and korea. china wants to connect to SE asia. SE asia wants to connect to australia and South asia. south asia wants to connect to the middle east. the middle east wants to connect to central asia and africa. central asia and africa want to connect to europe. in this way, your "neighbour" becomes your entire hemisphere, able to tap into abundance in the australian summer daytime during nuclear plant maintainance in japan. high rainfall in african dams can supply a period of low winds in germany. everyone is better off connected. you still must maintain your own system, but your risks go way down. consider that the main pitfalls of the project are "what if its attacked by a foreign actor?" and not "is the output worth the effort?" the reason why the foreign actor would attack it would be because *not* having the interconnector would make you weaker.

[@simonboland]

Two things: The sun cable problem is that energy generated in the Australia afternoon is not generated at peak times (i.e. evenings) in Singapore. This makes it less viable. Also, two big egos with Twiggy Forrest and Cannon Brookes was never going to work. Forrest recently laid off 700 jobs in the green hydrogen division of Fortescue.

[@lynndonharnell422]

Both grifters looking for taxpayer subsidies.

[@rogerphelps9939]

Green hydrogen is a contradiction in terms.

[@Bruiser223]

thats what the big battery was for mate

[@Leo555ZZZ]

Jobs were lost because they were unprofitable .

[@tonychen76]

The idea is dodgy in the first place if you are familiar with the countries involved. For example, Indonesia's power demand is projected to grow from 65 GW current demand to over 200 GW (this isn't that high, it's basically 5% increase annually over 25 years) in several decades. If the idea is to sell the solar power that Western Australia have in abundance, it makes way more sense to sell it to Indonesia and cut the length of the cable by half or even two thirds. Or if the idea is to sell solar power to Singapore, who's trying hard to reduce and even eliminate their gas-fueled power plants, it makes way more sense to open solar farms in Sumatra and Riau Islands that are right next to Singapore. While those islands are more densely populated that Western Australia, there are still plenty of areas that can be used for solar power. The cable needed then would've been just a hundred km long or at most two hundred. Hence the questioning about whether the 12 thousand km long cable makes sense.

[@VanillaMacaron551]

Yes. Steel is expensive.

[@tonychen76]

@@VanillaMacaron551 No, copper is. Power cables are made of copper.

[@hitthedeck4115]

I heard that Singapore is doing exactly that, which is planning to build solar farms in Indonesia (and import the electricity). It's said that one of the biggest hurdles is the battery storage which needs to be massive (and expensive).

[@oadka]

Fact is that Singapore can pay more money than indonesia, so it is easier to break even supplying power to singapore. Singapore also doesn't have many options for power on it's own so you can say it is more desparate.

[@tonychen76]

@@oadka The fact that Singapore can pay more may explain why SunCable was interested, but that very same fact is also why Singaporean companies are forming joint ventures with Indonesian companies to open solar power plants in nearby Batam and sell the power to Singapore. Because whatever price SunCable can offer, they can beat, because their cable only has to be 100 km long. And if you look it up, that's exactly what's going on.

[@Jecoopster]

This is so frustrating. Like, the engineering would work, but money and bureaucracy is getting in the way…

[@asfsfas2435]

no one want expensive electricity.

[@rickjohnson2165]

The engineering doesn’t really work, but the economics is shot. Utterly pointless, especially when we have cheaper and more reliable forms of energy.

[@tHebUm18]

Imagine complaining about money getting in the way. Look up the Juicero if you want an example of what engineering without regards to cost or reason can create. Using resources efficiently is essential to any human endeavor.

[@1155727]

Engineering is by far not only about making something work. Engineering also needs to deliver effective solutions. There surely must be some serious questions about the long-term cost-competitiveness of this idea...

[@titouan6118]

This is not just about bureaucracy. This bureaucracy is here to express the will of the concerned population

[@treefarm3288]

There was quite a lot of work on using thermal energy in SW Queensland and nearby, but it was ultimately decided it was too expensive to cable it to the east coast.

[@meerkathero6032]

20 GW is times more than all of NT needs. A 20 GW connection to Darwin is quite useless as long as there is not further evacuation possible. Currently, another company is developing a multi GW hydrogen project on Tiwi island, just north of Darwin. There are many more who are developing projects in Australia. The amount of GW scale solar and wind and hydrogen projects in Northern Territory and Western Australia is incredible. None of these projects finished or started construction, all in an early development stage.

[@markwright196]

All talk has been for a decade or more. Ammonia is a far better solution as its easier to transport and has more current uses.

[@duncanidaho9153]

@@markwright196 That's what I thought (as it was Twiggy's pushed story and Maesk had said they might use it for bunkering) too but there are big problems with Ammonia other than the high cost (inefficiencies). Toxicity and Nitrous oxide for a start.

[@hughleyton693]

Cabled power and Hydrogen projects can work together to make both work better.

[@markwright196]

@@duncanidaho9153 Cost depends on transport. Plus if you use nuclear like the Japanese are testing its 80% on hydrogen and runs 24/7. Plus its only a nuclear island so 30% of a grid power solution.

[@karpuzye]

It is really weird how they didn't think about this very basic problem before investing 🤔

[@dan7564]

Back when the world seemed more peaceful.

[@karpuzye]

@@dan7564 it was not. i was alive

[@hughleyton693]

I have been thinking about my "InterPower" for many years. . . Also the world is continually changing.

[@simonyoung5480]

It’s absolutely mad that the concept wasn’t proven within Australia first and enabled low to super low tariffs for Australian citizens and businesses . This could have driven investment to then enable the conduit to be laid to other countries so shorter cables could be pulled to jumper stations to create a full length supply to a neighbouring country.

[@hughleyton693]

The concept is well proven. . . HVDC cables have been in use in Europe for, I believe well over 60 years.. . It is proven technology. . . . It is just the component transistors to make it cheaper and easier have only become readily available over the last 10 years or so.

[@ericrushine]

Isn't the solution to sunlinks problem to give Indonesia access to the power cables. Indonesia is a chain of islands that could greatly benefit from moving green energy between the islands, and the cables are the exact infrastructure they would need for that. They might even want to buy some excess from Australia or sell to Singapore and beyond.

[@ExtraDryingTime]

Exactly, organic growth, giving everyone in SEA the chance to seek how it works and to keep up with their neighbours. Nobody wants to take a risk, nobody wants to be left behind either. Might even get Aus on board as well.

[@jonathanodude6660]

its a singaporean company, and yes theyve asked indonesia to join in. they have a website, so you dont need to comment on this news report asking questions that have been answered 😂 i havent checked it since the plan was cancelled and then restarted with new investors though.

[@moot2046]

Most of the Indonesia island sit right on top of the Ring of fire, that already post a huge challenge to lay the cable without worrying seismic activities destroy the cable. As for solar, why pay a huge fraction to help OZ to fund the supergrid project when you can harvest the sun power yourself?

[@ExtraDryingTime]

@@jonathanodude6660 I'll comment on what I like to comment on thank you very much

[@humyHumsyong]

Indonesia has enough / excess power which is from burning abundant coal, so this green energy from Australia isn't economical to this country. If Singapore wants energy and don't mind the coal burning, Indonesia can provide it as well.

[@neilmckay8649]

Singapore is always going to be vulnerable to energy supplies, adding another suppliers reduces risks overall, even if each supply has its own individual risks.

[@hughleyton693]

Yes, that is correct. . . Try to get to multiple sources of energy.. . . Note renewable energy, Wind and Solar must not cause existing other power generation sites to be closed down, but then they can burn less fossil fuel.

[@meerkathero6032]

Singapore is importing electric power through interconnectors already and is adding new ones. However, EMA (the responsible authority for power imports in Singapore) is not considering Suncable. Instead there are agreements in place for low carbon power imports with companies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam. Additional Singapore is installing nowadays a lots of PV and BESS in the own territory, the target of 2 GW PV until 20230 seems to be achievable. Many sources, not a single source, is better risk management and cheaper on the long run.

[@VanillaMacaron551]

The information here in your comment would have been a better basis for this report, with the failure of Suncable as the backstory. Very interesting, thank you.

[@meerkathero6032]

@@VanillaMacaron551 My opinion on DW Planet A is that they are excellent and this video is excellent. They are much better informed compared to most other formats. I should know a little bit more background because colleagues of mine worked in the past for some of the companies considered by EMA on exactly these projects. I delivered a little bit input for the feasibility studies for two Indonesian projects a few years ago. However, nothing that qualifies me to judge the information provided in the video.

[@jonathanodude6660]

@@VanillaMacaron551 suncable is an old initiative that was started as a singaporean company. the australian government hadnt actually signed off on anything the last time i checked.

[@hughleyton693]

Singapore does not have the space for serious Grid SOLAR. . . Australia with its open sunny desert areas is very well suited to provide a lot of Solar generated electrical Power, which Malaya, Indonesia etc, can not reliably do, due to their climate.

[@EnuffSaid2]

You forgot to mention there exsist already such cables, but not at such extreme lenghts. North Sea Link is 720km long at 1.4GW. The mentioned cable would transmit 2x power at 6x distance. This gives a rough estimate of 24Billion € for such a cable!

[@hughleyton693]

I noticed this video mentioned 3 cables. . . I find that strange, they should be in pairs.. . HVDC typically uses two cables, one for + HVDC and the other for - HVDC to balance the current and avoid Earth currents.

[@pizzaiolo181]

I was rooting for this project, but I understand how it can be seen as an issue for Singapore. It would make it too vulnerable to rely so much on one source of energy owned by a foreign country.

[@darkhorseman8263]

It got taken over and is going ahead. It didn't flop.

[@MattKucia]

Current deal with burning foreign gas is far from ideal as well.

[@EonityLuna]

I'm from Singapore here, and I can attest to this. Virtually everything we consume here is imported, and our country is extremely vulnerable to external economic and political shocks because of this. Indeed, we have been trying very hard to wean ourself off reliance on imported water supplies from Malaysia precisely due to political factors - we had a years-long dispute with our neighbour up north over how much we should be paying for their water, and it was what drove our country to invest in expensive water desalination and recycling plants instead. It was decided that desalination and water recycling would not only better insulate our water supply from external political and/or economic pressures, but it would end up being just as economical as importing water supplies from Malaysia given the revised price levels they were demanding us to agree to. With this in mind, it definitely wouldn't make much sense for us to begin relying on other countries for our renewable energy supplies as well. In fact our fossil fuel supplies that we mostly rely on right now is itself already all-imported; our natural gas supply, which makes up the bulk of our energy source, is itself imported via gas pipelines from Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as through LNG terminals. There are ongoing attempts to try and wean ourselves off imported energy supplies - solar power installations are going up in the few available spaces where we can build them (usually rooftops of buildings and public housing apartments, with floating solar plants on reservoirs being deployed or under planning/construction) - but given our limited land space there's really not many places where we can plop down renewable solar or wind energy plants. There's even mid- to long-term considerations to possibly deploy nuclear power here - there's ongoing effort to train a home-grown team of nuclear energy experts - even though the government has repeatedly stated that there's no firm commitment or timeline for their eventual deployment . A study back in 2012 found that nuclear energy technologies available then were not suitable for deployment here, but the government has promised to continue keeping tabs on developments in this field, and small modular reactors and nuclear fusion have been mentioned as potential options should they become viable in the future.

[@BondJFK]

@@MattKucia you can get gas from multiple countries but this solar network energy only from Australia, That too Australia and American puppet, Aussies will do anything for Americans even sell their land and women

[@Distress.]

@@MattKucia You can switch suppliers with gas, you can't do that with solar.

[@dominikgadze4221]

The main problem is the fixation on Singapore as a buyer. They should be first flooding the Australian grid with their clean energy, the lay cables to Indonesia and sell energy to them while extending to Singapore as your final destination. They could even sell cheap. You Don't need to cover all your costs. Even a portion is better then nothing for years.... Instead of wasting money on an entire cable manufacturing plant they could literally just rolled at the speed they would've been getting on the market. Meanwhile using surplus energy to generate H2 and selling that as well to lower the costs could've been a great support for the actual goal. Why pretend those are exclusive? They could've always expanded their solar farms to match demand...

[@hughleyton693]

A Singapore link has nothing to do with renewable energy to mainly east or south east Australia, which is already doing more and more clean energy.. . H² is a good idea for Energy Storage and could work well with Solar and Wind farms.

[@samuxan]

I think I've read somewhere that the cable that supposed to connect the UK with Morocco would need more than the steel produced each year. That problem is bigger than red tape or trust issues

[@velisvideos6208]

That's incorrect. Read again.

[@MalcolmRose-l3b]

I think you mean in excess of the sub-sea cable produced every year - that's why the company concerned is also planning to make it's own cable and have begun construction of the manufacturing plant in Scotland. This plant should open next year and eventually employ 900 people plus more in the supply chain. X Links say that worldwide demand for sub-sea should increase seven-fold over the next decade.

[@danguee1]

​@@velisvideos6208 That's really useful

[@hughleyton693]

No that is not correct.

[@anydaynow01]

Singapore has the brain trust and regulatory discipline to make SMRs work and work well. They should look into that until energy sources like fusion or fast reactors is available.

[@wtprwswtp7972]

SMRs may be a better alternative.

[@hughleyton693]

Singapore is probably already looking at SMR's perhaps becoming available in the next few years.

[@stickynorth]

SunCable should be a multi-national engineering project that benefits ALL the players along the way including but ESPECIALLY Indonesia which is one of the largest emerging nations on Earth... Perhaps direct government investment by Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia and East Timor should be considered...

[@billjackrock]

Australia is happy to take Indonesian money as well. But that's not up to Suncable to initiate. Indonesia, Malaysia and anyone else would need to put a request out to tender then Suncable and competitors can submit a bid for the project or come to an agreement through similar means.

[@Anarchy4Angels]

Why go for these super-long cables? Why not join up neighbouring grids first and learn from those smaller/easier projects? Morocco to Spain, Australia to Indonesia etc. surely it would be quicker/easier to get these up and running...

[@JohnHughesChampigny]

The problem is this is being done for money, and Singapore had more money than Indonesia.

[@Anarchy4Angels]

@@JohnHughesChampigny true but Indonesia are spending billions on a new purpose built capital city. It would be easy to add this into the infrastructure. Then just island hop to Singapore and mainland Asia.

[@stephenchallis1592]

Yes, and a Western Australia to South Australia high voltage DC connection to join the Western Australian power grid to the grid of the other Australian states sounds easier than a long undersea cable. As has been pointed out, the significant time difference between Perth and the eastern capitals would be an advantage in matching peak power production with peak usage.

[@capitalinventor4823]

When you send electricity "through" another grid then you need to pay the operator of that grid a fee for using it. They need to balance their grid with the extra load coming in on one side of the country and leaving on the other. How they meet those demands is up to them. They aren't just going to build a new cable from the incoming interconnect to the outgoing interconnect and let the electricity pass through. They might shift the incoming electricity to a nearby city and export the power from a generator near the outgoing interconnect. That's assuming that they are even capable of handling the incoming amount of electricity if their grid is at or near capacity. It might be less expensive in the long run to lay down a new undersea cable instead of paying multiple grid operators their fees for passing your electricity through their grids. For example, if Scotland wanted to export power to Gibraltar in the hopes of using it as a connection to Africa, then they would have to go through England, France, Spain, and then to Gibraltar. Or possibly Northern Ireland, Ireland, France, Spain, and Gibraltar. I don't know if there are separate operators for England and Northern Ireland but I'll assume there is. If the cost of passing electricity through another operators' grid is $0.01/MWh then for every MWh delivered from Scotland to Gibraltar it will cost either $0.03/MWh or $0.04/MWh depending on the route taken. They also don't have full control of the equipment used to send their electricity. It's not just security issues but companies could become poor in maintaining their equipment leading to outages. While it may cost a lot of money upfront to install an undersea cable it may average out to $0.02/MWh. (I'm just guessing and I have no idea how much it would really cost.) In that case it would be an easy decision to go with ones' own cable. Even it it were $0.05/MWh it still might be worth the price as it builds in the security of knowing you control your own equipment. Plus chances are that prices to transfer electricity over other grids will only increase while this price is fixed over the lifetime of the cable, which has a high probability of being a long time.

[@Suburp212]

How about making a massive solar farm in Northern Australia and powering Australia with it?

[@hughleyton693]

That is already being done.. . But more sensibly, put the solar farms and wind farms closer to the Australian cities, as is being done. .. . No point in running long overland power pilon cables across Australia, if that renewable energy can be generated nearer the population who needs it.

[@joan_arc]

unlike the internet, where supply is almost unlimited to meet demand, there is a cap on the production of electricity and adding capacity will take much longer time than internet.

[@tuwanshamoonbooso8480]

If we can build a supergrid connecting all countries, we can reduce the need for battery storage since when one part of the globe is in the dark, the other part in daylight we can use the solar power of countries in daylight to power the countries in dark

[@surters]

That would be nice, a shame countries "randomly" cuts connections to their neighbours for petty reasons, Russia used it as a weapon, there is some trouble between Algeria, Morocco and Spain that sabotage gas delivery. And from the video we heard Malaysia didn't want to send renewable energy to Singapore.

[@Petriiik]

once i did an oversimplified calculation, that was neglecting a lot of grid branches and i came to the result that only the ring around the world would consume 70 years of worldwide production of copper.

[@markhivin8670]

@@Petriiik Aluminium is used

[@Petriiik]

@@markhivin8670 well then, no problem 🤣

[@hughleyton693]

Yes, a worldwide supergrid, such as my "InterPower" concept.. . Being many east-west links, it will reduce the need for battery storage.

[@tostuk2528]

Where can I find the maps shown at 0:57-1:01

[@oadka]

global solar atlas/ global wind atlas

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! The source is the Global Solar Atlas.

[@riaz8783]

5:56 I can't believe they got Ozzy Man to invest

[@tonybloomfield5635]

😂😂😂😂😂 Very good.

[@tomkelly8827]

I see many benefits and also many drawbacks to large interconnectors like this. We could really use one here in Canada to link our provinces and territories but it would be much longer than this one. I believe Australia needs one as well. Interconnectors are great to spread the energy wealth but it also concentrates it too

[@beyondfossil]

At present time, it is a worthwhile idea to transport this energy. But consider the availability of sunlight and wind are very widespread across the globe delivered freely by nature. So, the idea of having huge interconnection like this may become moot in the near future because most of the world's population lives in the sunny & warm locations. Transporting this energy _possibly_ could have value for remote locations living in high latitudes perhaps but that's it. Moreover, the idea of *energy independence* is growing since energy is a matter of national security level importance. It's just that the level of energy independence that renewables can provide has been unthinkable in past decades with fossil fuel global dominance -- exactly what the fossil fuel hegemony wanted. Renewables have reached historic level low costs of energy production and still continue to fall in price! The raw inputs of sunlight & wind cannot be sanctioned, blockaded, tariffed or taxed.

[@JusticeAlways]

How about ships fully fitted out with batteries...charge them up then ship to destination for energy distribution.

[@STELLVIA.]

Failed to mention that due to long distance and cable resistance 30-50% of the produced energy is lost in transmission.

[@VanillaMacaron551]

Yes people often seem unaware of "voltage drop" - where you lose power when transporting long distances. Better to design a grid where power is generated close to where it's used.

[@dynamogaming4953]

Sunrise seriously needs some therapy 😂😅

[@1968Christiaan]

No - please check your facts on the use of very high voltage cables. The drop is minimal. The only weakness in this soluation are the expensive converter stations at each end.

[@Simon-dm8zv]

@@1968Christiaanexactly.

[@1155727]

​@@1968Christiaan, well, with any transmission line technology, the losses increase with the length of the cable... So even if the losses over 1000 km are only a bit over a couple percent you are looking at about 10% loss over this cable length. That is not nothing... This proposal would have to be seen in competition against other renewables that are possibly a lot closer.

[@tombh74]

Love your format of no-nonsense fact based reporting.❤

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey Tom! Glad to hear that you like our video. We post videos like this one every Friday. Subscribe to not miss any video ✨

[@Kfend19]

The island of Ireland has vast potential for wind energy that is very slowly going through approvals and mapping, the biggest issue is connections to markets! We only have connections to the UK at present with the Celtic interconnector between France and Ireland the first non UK connection, but we need many times more connector capacity for us to be able to export our vast wind energy to the European market! They also talk about green hydrogen here, but as you say, it's a very inefficient use of energy...

[@VanillaMacaron551]

An interconnector from Ireland to France - now there's an interesting story, DW. Suncable was always pie-in-the-sky, at a time when not even all Australian states are connected.

[@hughleyton693]

Yes, that is all developing. . . . Green Hydrogen should only be made from surplus Wind and Solar generation periods and stored as Hydrogen for later use when needed.. . It is a form of Energy Storage. . . And if made from Surplus Wind and Solar, it is Not inefficient, but almost a free bi-product.

[@dougaltolan3017]

The differences between this (and XLinx) and data is that intermediate countries aren't bypassed, and data is bidirectional. When everyone is connected and, in this case Singapore, gets energy 9n a feed forward basis as opposed to bypass, the trust requirement reduces when every destination has multiple sources.

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

4:32 😂Indonesian Sea. Do you have permission?

[@TheAscael]

If Elon Musk can enter the monopoly of Internet provider market I'm confident that they can Though don't rely on Indonesia to protect the cable

[@crasho1980]

Why not sell to Indonesia? And the connect the grid thru Indonesia? The whole idea seems stupid as it ignored the needs closer to the source

[@ridhobaihaqi144]

​@@crasho1980indonesian state owned electricity company (PLN) is monopolizing the electricity all over indonesia, and the really hate competitor no matter local private company or even foreign company. Also indonesia lots of bribery.

[@crasho1980]

@@ridhobaihaqi144 in case you don't know, PLN buy electricity for private power plan. So buying from Australia is not a stretch. They will need to talk to Indonesia govt anyway as they need to cross Indonesian water.

[@vernandocalvin4373]

Pln is not mono​polizing, lmao. Pln just distributed electricity, but the source is from other. Educated yourself next time.@@ridhobaihaqi144

[@fishyerik]

A supergrid sounds like a great idea, evening out differences between supply and demand when and where it's practical. Dedicated power generation in one place and make hyper expensive, direct and dedicated connections to another place, far far away, ignoring both domestic market and much closer neighbors seems fundamentally stupid. Very large projects tends to become much more expensive and take longer than initially estimated, you don't have to be very familiar with that that's common knowledge. This proposed size, complexity and level of novelty, and also having to produce the cables, doubling their estimates for cost and time to build could still be considered a somewhat optimistic estimate. There's no good technical reason to make a gigantic solar farm and battery storage facility in Australia to export power to Singapore. It's true that cheap land and high production are advantages, but that's insignificant compared to the costs and uncertainties involved with exporting the power almost via 13,000 km cables. I can't see any reasonable explanation for the interest in investing in it besides collecting subsidies somehow, and/or potentially utilize local sources of low quality fossil fuels to generate large part of the energy, officially just as "backup". Making hydrogen or ammonia to export to be used as fuel is also not a solution. Hydrogen is an absurdly impractical fuel, possibly the worst "seriously" suggested choice, utilized by companies to delay adoption of real solutions, and green washing while collecting subsidies. With ammonia as hydrogen's closest contender for the title of most impractical "green" fuel to be "seriously" proposed as a solution. Instead of exporting energy far far away, there's always the option to have local energy intensive industrial production, and export the produced goods, the part of the production that exceeds domestic demand. Exporting easily transported goods that represents a lot of energy in manufacturing makes much more sense from both a technical and economical perspective compared to exporting the energy.

[@DNX3M]

Canada has been trading renewable hydro power to the US for decades.

[@ngamashaka4894]

In fact, it was the U.S. that agreed to lend the money to build the dam in Northern Quebec. You see, the rest of Canada was not willing to do so. For Canadians, the first quality of French Canadians is not being Black, so they can do and say as they want without being seen as racist. Then they wonder why Quebec wants to leave... Same thing for an abused woman.

[@Nooo70]

@@ngamashaka4894 the first quality of French Canadians is not being Black? que dire des amerindiens alors?🙂la pleurnicherie ne mene jamais loin🙃

[@tomkelly8827]

@@ngamashaka4894 What are you talking about? I will guess that you are in your teens or tweenty's and you have not learned how to speak yet. Work on that. You can do better. I live in Ontario and I believe in you!

[@Randomgen77]

@@ngamashaka4894Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

[@ngamashaka4894]

As I was saying, English Canadians hate French Canadians. It's easy to see right here, and I was expecting it. No, I'm not a teenager; I know my history. But if you happen to live outside Quebec, you don't get the truth. This is a shock to you. The thing is, Quebec was able to develop only because it could secure loans from the USA. They were more than happy to lend money to develop the James Bay dams because Quebec had no debt. Why? Because health services and schools were provided by the Catholic Church at the time (very different from the communism we get now, but that's another story). As I mentioned, Wall Street was surprised that the rest of Canada wasn't lending money to build the dams. If you just look at the messages here, you'll see: English Canadians hate French Canadians. There's a lot of jealousy because Quebec, among other things, doesn't fully embrace the multiculturalism trend, and they don't want their cities to look like Toronto, where the majority of the population wasn't born in Canada. This 'dam story' is just one of the many things the rest of Canada has been doing to undermine us since 1867. I could fill books on this subject. They call us "white n****rs" for a reason, you know...

[@WindFritz]

in opinion there is plenty area for PV everywhere. renewable make you independent, so why to make you dependent with cables and pipelines?

[@BlackWater_49]

11:03 Actually I disagree. This makes a global interconnected grid even more appealing because is one country would decide to suddenly just cut a connection you could just reroute the energy to it's destination another way, circumventing the cut connection.

[@lekaido]

Electric connectors between Estonia and Finland regularly break down for various reasons. The gas pipeline in the Finnish gulf transferring gas the same route was damaged (allegedly on purpose) by a Chinese ship's anchor and went out of commission as well. So, not only are these projects costly - they are also fragile and vulnerable in operation. Didn't take much to blow up the gas pipeline in the Baltic sea. Hydrogen or ammonia seems like a safer option both for consumers and producers because the chance of a market disruption or bottlenecks in the market are less of a risk as long as the world shipping continues to function.

[@Duncan_Campbell]

they were looking to build a pipeline, for the Ammonia. and got told no. if they were going to transport it via ship that might have been a different response, but that was not what was proposed at the time.

[@MormonDude]

One thing to note is that even if they aren’t supplying power to Singapore, this is still a global net positive. Using those panels to supply power to the Australian capital is still covering for power that would otherwise have been supplied using coal and fossil fuels.

[@shiraleeana]

Is it possible to export energy using batteries or is that not scalable?

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! Yes, it is possible. One ship with batteries on board is set to be completed in 2025 and will then start with the testing phase. If you want to find out more, search for PowerX. However, it is for short distances

[@betawikid]

Australia and Singapore forgot... They on Indonesia Sea Teritorial bro😂

[@Minecraft4Noob]

yep, if they want to build it in our sea, they must pay us a BIG money first.😂

[@ReLogic888]

No, they are not forgot. They just underestimating Indonesian bureaucracy, OR they are just over confidence with they ability to "concuering" Indonesia.

[@notabot0001]

Pass it through West Papua

[@Minecraft4Noob]

@@notabot0001 Where is Singapore located?

[@hughleyton693]

In my view, the undersea cable should be in deep international waters.

[@breakingtoys3542]

This is a great and educating reporting, I believe this is a great idea, but when the world is in harmony. We must first achieve unity, become one and then we can create a beautiful world for everyone on earth.

[@hughleyton693]

That is the beauty of using HVDC, you don't need harmony, just across border agreements.

[@op4000exe]

I imagine projects like these will slowly happen all over the world, but it won't be as big projects connecting faraway places in one go, but rather a lot of smaller connections in various places laying the groundwork, which bigger and longer connections will then build upon. Also I imagine the timescale on such projects will be slower than one'd hope, but faster than one'd imagine. Because it has to deal with geopolitics and buildup of trust and alternatives.

[@DNX3M]

For a modern day example, you can read on the Hertel‑New York interconnection line which construction began this summer. It is a few MW added to existing infrastructures. The legislation and construction are plan to take about 6 years. This is between good trading partner that already rely on each other for this type of resource, who already possess the technological capacity and a knowledge of the terrain geology. A best case scenario.

[@surters]

Most of the connection in Europe is because depending on time, wind and sun, there are sometimes huge price differences. To do this elsewhere you need to trust your neighbour to not randomly cut the connection, to have a somewhat free electricity market and being able to pay. This limits the possible connections a lot. Lets say India wants to trade power with Italy and that there would be no tension between them, they could lay a cable from south India up to the Red Sea, through Suez, through the Mediterranean sea to Italy. Passing the Bab el-Mandeb, there are several risk factors, Yemen and Sudan are rather troubled at the moment, they and even Turkey might be provoked by Indian policies. They could try over land instead, Pakistan ... lets backtrack, undersea cable to Oman, then to either UAE or directly to Saudi, but Saudi doesn't have a connected grid internally iirc etc. etc. etc. Instead they need to agree to sell stuff to Oman on a kind of free market, who then sell on to the Saudis, who need to connect internally to move surplus power around, they already have a cable to Egypt and Egypt is either building or negotiating to connect to Cypress which will have a connection to Greece, who has a connection to Italy.

[@3abxo390]

Real engineering did a piece on something similar. A solar farm in the Sahara and a cable to Europe. I think the problem there was the cost of the cable.

[@F3553ify]

One thing that is also often missing in the debate. Is how electic grids stay stable. Large rotating masses like steam turbines are needed to keep the grid stable. They have rotational inertia that resist changes from the demand in the grid. Wind and solar does not make grids stable, they are great for peak energy usage. It makes peak demand cheaper. But does not effect base load. The newer larger wind turbines also is "asynchronous" which their rotational speed is not tied to the grid frequency. Mostly that the gearboxes are the biggest points of failure. They instead converts the energy to DC and then back to AC. But in that process it removed the rotational inertia that is tied to the grid. And back to this topic. Long distance energy transfer of electricity DC is the only choice due to losses in capistance and inductance (and the skin effect to a minor extent). But DC system does not make the consuming nation AC grid stable. Either we need to create "stabalization stations" that have large flywheels that we spin up with electric engines and a generator at the other end. Battery storage does not fully solve this issue to keep the grid stable. It is more about to cut the energy demand tops.

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! We actually looked at the issues of the electrical grid some months ago. Check out the video and let us know what you think 👉kzbin.info/www/bejne/q16npHericiYitE

[@geotard]

Battery, gyroscopes, gravity well, hydro batteries and others would fill the gap. The idea that base load, in the sense of coal burning, has been disproven. Like the internet, the winner is multiple sources and multiple routes build redundancy, compared to a single point of failure in a steam generator. The opportunity of building a grid that can take power from any source, bringing business opportunities to farmers and other areas of our economy scares the existing big industries who can't compete. The battle to keep the status quo is driven by existing investments lobbying to distract the general population.

[@hughleyton693]

Your " missing in the debate. Is how electic grids stay stable. " This is very important with present AC Grids. . . But not a problem with HVDC Transmission, and then you use "Grid Forming Inverters" to feed that HVDC into the Grid at suitable locations.. . . "Grid Forming Inverters" are these days, designed to make and help keep regular AC Grids more stable... . This is relatively new technology as set out by the UK and Europe in 2022, not yet in the US.

[@donalain69]

The Line loss (voltage drop) af such a cable is probably between 20-50%, depending on the Current. Solar panels in Australia produce maybe 2-3% more then in Singapore..

[@JonathanMaddox]

Not even close. Line losses are very small with HVDC, just 3.5% per 1000km. Lines up to 2500km already exist on land, and 720km under the sea. It works.

[@donalain69]

@@JonathanMaddox ok.. assuming the line losses where 12%.. its probably still less then the difference made by the sunshine in Australia vs an area witch cheap land within 100km from Singapore. Im dreaming of a global grid where solar power can be shared to the other side of the planet as well.. but to get there we need cables that are cheap and have almost zero line losses... oh.. and as you mentioned.. it would have to be DC.. not AC.

[@darkhorseman8263]

It didnt flop. It got new funding and is going ahead.

[@buildmotosykletist1987]

Nope. It's collapsed. It exists in name only, nothing is happening. Twiggy laid-off all the 700 staff.

[@ginalley]

@@buildmotosykletist1987 is that staff related to suncorp or his own business called fortescue

[@joshua54791]

Turning the power to methane or ammonia seems more viable. It can be easily stored, which reduces the concerns about energy security, just as how we use natural gas these days. It can be transferred without massively building a mega power cable network.

[@cyrusp100]

Hydrogen/ammonia is terribly inefficient compared to electricity.

[@lingth]

Singapore is also building a floating solar farm near the Raffles light house in the seas to the south of Singapore. And under neath it, also tidal turbines

[@hughleyton693]

Yes, that can help, but that will be just small, compared to what could be feed from Australia Solar.

[@sebastiangruenfeld141]

Hello! Amazing video as always! Can you please do a video about Polyhydroxyalkanoates which is naturally occuring polymers that could be a viable biodegradable replacement for plastics. Sadly I cannot find many videos on KZbin about it. Could you also do a video on space based solar? We've all heard of that consortium of companies that want to plaster North Africa with solar panels and send that eergy to Europe but what if we placed those solar panels in space?

[@tomkelly8827]

They do sell loads of solar power to Asia already. It is in the form of coal and natural gas though

[@doug282]

😂😂

[@hughleyton693]

That is the problem.. . Coal is a very dirty way to generate electricity.. . . Solar and Nuclear are far cleaner and safer forms of electricity generation.

[@1changi]

Singapore wants to own the power grid. It has to be nearby. Energy is an strategic asset. Too risky to position the power grid so far away.

[@hughleyton693]

Solar power from Australia would Not replace exisisting Singapore's own generation, just enable it to burn less fossil fuel, and hopefully result in cheaper electricity for Singapore, and so less CO² into the atmosphere.

[@nisbahmumtaz909]

It flopped because what the hell would Indonesia gain from approving any of this? When you're just knocked aside like some pawn that's expected to just let two rich countries have their way while potentially disrupting EVERYTHING about your waters (ecology, sovereignty, security) over an uncertain plan, it doesn't take a billionaire or two to see this not happening.

[@hitthedeck4115]

Tax, obviously, which is another hurdle. I don't see how it would affect Indonesia's sovereignty or security greatly since it only transport power while things like international ships travel through Indonesian waters daily.

[@141Travish]

​@@hitthedeck4115what if they put some devices in the cables, spying Indonesia? National Security bruh ...😂

[@nisbahmumtaz909]

@@hitthedeck4115 There's a huge difference between ships just moving about in waters vs undersea cables that will stay there for decades and require constant monitoring + maintenance; and should anything go wrong will always affect the local people the most. Also I like how you decided to address the least important of the 3 factors I stated (despite Southeast Asian waters not being a small matter of contention). It's a bad idea, and the only people that could see this as anything but absolute nutters are people with statuses elevated so above the clouds that it'd loop back right into their asses.

[@julianshalders6047]

What's next, a wind farm on top of Mt Everest 😂FFS, this bullshit will never work, the environment is getting hammered in Australia. Pretty blond lady George skipper has been given the PR job to sell this stupid idea😂.

[@alechiodakat9057]

Everything suffers from inefficiency and power loss. The question is if a solution is resilient and capable of continuing to supply. This you can achieve with ammonia. If you want a stable supply not so easy to interrupt. We should be looking at a combination that works best. Both options in combination. Then the opposition which says you can't provide stable supply won't have a point. We can't seem to get past this here in Australia. And NT is only 30 minutes behind the east coast so it's no use in the evening except for the few uSec that a battery will work. Change is rarely evolutionary 😊

[@firefox39693]

Nuclear energy would make so much more sense for Singapore.

[@kevinpaine7893]

Singapore's energy market authority is closely monitoring the development of Small Modular Reactors. The ground clearing at Darlington nuclear power station in Canada has started for the first four BWRX-300 to be built. Poland has approved 24 BWRX-300 SMRs but are not as close to construction commencement as Canada. Many countries are sitting back waiting for the outcomes of the Canadian & Polish projects. Building the same reactor design 28 times is expected to give the construction experience and establish the supply lines to get significant reductions in both cost and construction time. By 2030 I'd expect to see more countries signing up for SMRs and the large nuclear rollout the IPCC notes as necessary to reach net zero will be on in earnest.

[@tonybloomfield5635]

For Australia there are two big obstacles, Bowen and Albanese.

[@kevinpaine7893]

@@tonybloomfield5635 Albanese has been the spearhead of ALP anti-nuclear policy for close to 50 years. Australia needs bipartisan support for nuclear to get off the ground but the ALP will never agree as long as Albanese has any influence over policy. We ended up swapping climate change deniers for climate change solution deniers.

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey everyone! We actually looked at SMRs recently. You can find the video here 👉 kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZmugmt7hZaUZ7s Let us know what you think about it ✨

[@jonathantan2469]

​@@kevinpaine7893The opposing LNP is also quite anti nuclear, but for protecting coal & gas generation interests. In fact, they were the ones who banned nuclear generation in Australia in the 1990s. Labor also joined suit to please the coal miner unions.

[@orbiradio2465]

Long distance power lines are very expensive. On the other hand the conditions for solar in Indonesia and Malaysia are good, just not as perfect as in Australia. So getting electricity from those countries would be more sensible for Singapur. Solar in Australia would be better used for production, which needs a lot of energy. Ammoniak is one option. Another would be to export iron and aluminium instead of iron ore and bauxit.

[@bobmarshall3700]

Time for the Australian Government to look after Australians first! Forget trying to profit by selling all our natural resources and give Aussies cheaper electricity prices. We don't need power from overseas! As usual, this is all about money and a few people getting rich!

[@Tom-dt4ic]

I agree. Austrilia shouldn't export it's own god given precious sunshine. Austrilia should let our own god given sun heat up our own god given red soil and let that be the god given end of it.

[@tedcalouri2694]

Isn't there a company working with a battery company to make shipping container solid state batteries for importing/exporting electricity with standard logistics?

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey Ted! Maybe you are referring to PowerX that develops a ship with batteries on it to transport energy?

[@Suleimani_ali]

Apart from Australia, Indonesia has also been exporting its energy to Singapore, but not from renewable sources, rather from coal. Yet, when it comes to renewable energy, Indonesia could create a mega geothermal project that could provide a much cleaner and larger energy source. However, due to the interference of coal oligarchs, this geothermal renewable energy isn't being expanded as much as it could be because it's less profitable for energy capitalists.

[@ELIOSANFELIU]

So nice idea¡¡All the best¡¡¡

[@Alastair510]

All this talk about 'hydrogen is so inefficient to produce" talk ignores the need to produce ammonia for nitrogen fertilizers.

[@makahmed7130]

Malaysia Johar Provence is next to Singapore.. plus Singapore imports its water from Johar river

[@mike160543]

In my view the game stopper is lack of security of supply. Current best processes for water electrolysis have an effective electrical efficiency of 70-80%. I don’t know how much power would be lost transmitting DC thousands of kilometres and converting it to AC at the receiving end. All these projects depend on cheap, or nearly free, electricity. I think that you underestimate the cost of transporting hydrogen over long distances. Hydrogen boils at -252C at atmospheric pressure. Ammonia boils at -33C. This makes it much cheaper to store and transport in large quantities. The volume of traded ammonia worldwide was estimated at around 18 million metric tons in 2021. This figure is forecast to grow continually in the upcoming years, reaching a volume of some 238 million metric tons by 2050. Ammonia can easily be cracked to give nitrogen and hydrogen and the hydrogen is easily separated from the nitrogen. So ammonia is the best way of transporting hydrogen over long distances. Finally “green” ammonia can directly displace ammonia made from fossil fuels without any changes to infrastructure.

[@nolan4339]

While expanding grid interconnections is fine and should be pursued, it still relies a lot on political cooperation, which is slow, whereas hydrogen/ammonia production is a commodity which is easily stored in bulk and has established and growing markets which are less likely to run into political hurdles to develop and grow.

[@hughleyton693]

My "InterPower" concept would not involve much political cooperation, using HVDC, just cross border agreements.

[@peterkratoska4524]

Before I saw the rest of the video, I immediately wondered about the issues of the cable, and was thinking of Japan and Korea focusing on using anhydrous ammonia and ship the ammonia or burn it as needed or convert it to hydrogen (as liquid ammonia contains more hydrogen by volume than liquid hydrogen) Ammonia burns with no c02 emissions. It may not burn as easily as hydrocarbons but it also has properties that are similar to propane for both storage and transport which makes it a really interesting choice. For what its worth the US has some 5,000km of ammonia pipelines. Mostly from the gulf to the midwestern states for agricultural purposes. So I would think that Forrest has a really good point. While it is true that ammonia is toxic and dangerous, no fuel is really safe. There are other issues with a submarine cable besides Australia changing its mind. In recent years we've seen the destruction of the Nord 2 pipeline, and Russia has been sabotaging underwater internet cables. So there is way too much vulnerability. There is also the huge amount of special metals required.

[@hughleyton693]

The answer should be a mixture of all three means. .. HVDC power Cables, Hydrogen, and Ammonia for burning. . . But Ammonia is a nasty liquid to work with.

[@edreeves6440]

Some of those internet connections you talk about would be crossed by this electric interconnector which could be a massive problem for Indonesia. At the same time Indonesia and Singapore are in constant negotiations regarding Indonesia providing Singapore with power across the very narrow Malaka Strait (to give it its proper name). And Indonesia has enormous geothermal and hydro power potential, the former at least mostly still untapped. So why do they want the interconnector to go all the way to Singapore when it could just go to Java? It's all about money, not saving the planet.

[@AnalystPrime]

Naysayers: "You can't do that because there is no cable!" Smart investors: "So you are saying that making cables is a huge business opportunity..."

[@virtualcircuit]

I am an expert in this technology and also the commercial applications and as soon as i saw this was announced i knew it would fail. There are many many technical reasons that are so blaringly obvious to an expert.... but also one simpler reason: Sumatera is only 100km away and you could just as easily install the solar infrastructure there than in Australia. Also the Java sea is the perfect depth for wind turbines that would compliment the solar system. As an Australian who left working in Australia to work on Renewables in Europe and founded my own company providing expertise I find it insanely disappointing the energy policy in Australia, there are practically no experts involved at government level.....

[@laowai2000]

No expert but just on the face of it, sounds like an uneconomical therefore unviable solution. Sure Sumatra and ocean wind much smarter alternative.

[@edward6902]

Newfoundland is at a northern hemisphere energy crossroad, with lots of wind and hydro potential a submerged EHVDC link to ireland is worth looking at

[@hughleyton693]

Yes. .. That is what my "InterPower" concept shows.

[@usamwhambam]

Could ships be built to contain huge batteries that could move between electrical producers to be charged and electrical consumers to be discharged? The ships could use part of the battery charge for propulsion.

[@DWPlanetA]

In theory at least? Little similar to how electric ferries and some cargo ships currently operate.🧐 Maybe it could be a disaster relief and supply for small island communities and also charge by off-shore wind. 🌬️

[@3abxo390]

Malaysia cuts off supply, so they decide to *not* give the green light to a cable from Australia??? How does that make sense??? Getting a cable from Australia would diversify the suppliers!

[@ganaspin]

Energy security is indeed a very relevant topic for grid operators, and I don't think people realize just how important it is. Many seems to view the matter as some "non-sense political dispute", but it's actually a technical issue, since you can't have much reliability when the electricity you're using is coming from such a far away place, one that you don't get to control yourself. For small island nations like Singapore, and a pretty wealthy at that too, floating nuclear power stations should do the job. It lets you access relatively huge amounts of electricity using such a small area, one that can be totally under your own territory. It should be a no-brainer! Currently though, only Russia manufactures those, and Singapore would probably not want to annoy its main western partner, the US, by building important relations with Russia. That said, they could as well invest in Korean companies aiming to deliver those very power plants by the early 2030s.

[@bearcubdaycare]

Implementing incrementally, first to Darwin then maybe to Indonesia and finally to Singapore, or other countries, makes great sense in terms of derisking, learning lessons for an initial project before expanding, and giving quicker return. Who knows if Singapore will even turn out to be the main market? Also, 20GW seems seriously unimpressive. No wonder it's hard to make the cable economics work.

[@hughleyton693]

Yes, perhaps a good idea. . . In any case, such an undersea cable would actually need a number of cables, not just one large cable. . . . So yes the first cables could easily go to Indonesia.

[@jackfromthe60s]

No mention of the enormous losses in a 4500km long electric cable? What about the huge amount of copper required for this cable? The whole idea was a pipe-dream.

[@DWPlanetA]

Good points to consider for sure. HVDC systems have rather low losses over long distances, less than 3% per 1,000 km. They'd still add up for such a long distance obviously. Copper is critical, but there are supergrid proposals consider using aluminum instead!

[@macdonald1631]

A 23B project started in 2019 and just start concerning the basic questions after 4 years of its implementation. The most joking part is not even sure will Singapore agree to relay on its energy. Lol. This is naive or childish.

[@gerrygiovan4720]

Why not try selling some to Indonesia too since the cable is close to major cities like Surabaya and Denpasar? Indonesia rely too much on coal and oil power plants, that a renewable energy would be useful. If it's cheap, that is

[@urbanstrencan]

Another great video but still thinking that we need more of localized electric production with local resurces

[@peterlabiak1051]

The high density solar energy in places like Australia doesn’t make the stratospheric costs of laying the cables justifiable. The space required to build those 20GW solar factories is tiny in comparison to the areas of literary any country in the World, with some notable exceptions. Investing those 23bn in neighbouring countries or to create offshore wind and tidal energy infrastructure would make waaay more sense. If you are really hell bent on sending energy long distances there is a company called Space Solar which already demonstrated a working prototype of wireless energy transmission from space. One thing is certain. Hydrogen is a waste of time at the current state materials technology. Not only circa30% of the entry point energy is able to be consumed but it also destroys everything it comes in touch with. It would make more sense to send tankers full of compressed CO2 scrubbed from the atmosphere. This way you would remove CO2 from the air, use the energy by decompressing it to run turbines and then recapture and burry/utilise the resulting „waste” CO2. Also, fusion is 10years away 😜

[@silentblackhole]

Great idea. I fee like this is on a scale that would best be initially done by the government but then once proven the commercial sector could come in and finish this.

[@hughleyton693]

Undersea HVDC transmission is a well proven concept, been done for over 50 years, it does not need further proving.

[@gianlucarocca68]

I think is a very great idea on the long term, which would result in cheaper energy for Australia and Singapore.

[@DarkVader-jj4dt]

A lot of grandiose talk in Australia about renewable energy, but so far very little has been achieved.

[@xtmillsx]

Well, not quite. I live in South Australia, at present powered by 80% renewables. Next year, or the year after, 100%. The same, roughly, is true for Tasmania. However, these are small states, but the pipeline of renewable projects, assuming they go ahead, should easily decarbonise the Australian grid by 2030-35

[@kujuakusg]

Indonesia can make use of their many islands near Singapore,to set up solar farm and sell it to Singapore.

[@TheodoreMarshall-g5v]

That subsea cable from South East Asia to Africa is just plain daft. How would laying submarine ables across the Indian Ocean ever make economic sense?

[@HowellQ]

Georgie Skipper was basically reading everything off the screen. Yikes, so much for being from the industry.

[@fauzirahman3285]

It is unfortunate that the eastern states of Australia are beholden to the energy contracts that currently provide a massive amount of coal and gas power generation, otherwise that would be the perfect plan to export some of that energy that could have been produced in that northern region.

[@Tensquaremetreworkshop]

You can move energy to where it is needed. Or you can move the need to where the energy is.

[@BattNW]

Short answer to your question about where I want my energy to come from is easy, my yard. I'll eventually add panels to cover the extra need for my EVs and replacing the gas use. The grid need is my backup, which I still pay for through my monthly bill. I wish this solution were more scalable worldwide, and interconnects are part of this, but geopolitics and capital will always be a bigger issue than technology.

[@mbaktari8194]

INDONESIAN here, I think Singapore invests on GEO-THERMAL power in Sumatra Utara also.

[@rufusm4204]

How about Australia use that energy to supply its own needs? What a concept!

[@stevenmeyer8211]

In an era of growing geopolitical tensions I see no prospect of this happening in the foreseeable future.

[@dekumutant]

There is no geopolitical tensions between Australia and SEA

[@puffinjuice]

I think the efficiency of the interconnectors should have been brought up in this video.

[@slypig24]

Haven't they had the interconnect between Victoria and Tasmania fail twice, and it too a very long time to repair, and that a very short power cable. But i have this project is completed and does supply Singapore with power . It might be the start of many more mega solar farms.

[@Cptnbond]

There is another side to the global interconnect grid: consumer prices. Consider living in a country with plentiful natural resources, e.g., hydroelectric plants. First, its citizens pay the investments (by tax) and then enjoy plenty of low-priced energy. However, with a common market for energy prices, another region will dictate the price. For example, gas imports in central Europe dictate the consumer cost of Nordic countries' low-priced energy, and the demand (profit) will increase Nordic prices. However, fundamentally, it should have a low local price. Thus, globalization for the greater good is a lousy idea locally unless you differentiate the local price vs. the exported price, but that is not the case in the free markets, like in the EU.

[@Specified5706]

The should probably split it into 2 businesses, a solar farm business, and a cable infrastructure business. Shouldn’t be limited to selling energy to Singapore and instead sell to anyone who is connected and can pay for it. The Cable also shouldnt be limited to just transferring energy for this venture. Can link multiple countries/territories, enable them to sell surplus energy to one another, and charge a fee for the usage.