SunCable, the developer of what it says will be Australia’s largest solar and battery storage project, hopes to deliver the first power from its massive facility to industrial customers by the end of the decade.

Speaking after the announcement on Monday of a landmark deal with local traditional owners – the final plank of the approvals needed to go ahead with the project – SunCable CEO Ryan Willemsen-Bell says discussions are already taking place with potential customers of its “affordable, reliable solar power.”

Willemsen-Bell says the SunCable project will seek to generate a constant supply of up to 3 gigawatts (GW) of “firmed solar” – that would combine more than 12 GW of solar capacity supported by 45 GWh of battery storage.

The first stage could be a lot smaller – sized as little as 200 megawatts (MW) of firmed capacity.

SunCable is hoping to tap into the huge global demand for power for data centres, and other green industries such as renewable fuels.

Willemsen-Bell says the first, and indeed future customers, could be located in the Barkly region, meaning the supply could start before any transmission line to Darwin, some 800 kms away, is built.

“We are one of the few projects of this size and scale globally that now has all of these approvals and is then able to start actually developing,” Willemsen-Bell said.

“We hope to be delivering first power here at this site region in the Barkly region by the end of this decade.” That would require some sort of off-take deal negotiated within the next year or two.

SunCable remains majority owned by software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, although the company has been talking to bankers, financiers and potential equity partners as it seeks to start development of the project.

The company still harbours ambitions of delivering power to Singapore, via a sub-sea cable to south-east Asia, and has Singapore government approvals, but that is likely to happen only in the next decade.

In the meantime, it is looking at kickstarting the project at a smaller scale

“We’ve done a lot of work on this, and it’s important that the project is pragmatic in the way it moves forward,” he said. “We believe that starting at around 200 megawatts and being able to progress from there will be the starting point.”

Willensen-Bell said there is already interest from customers who are seeking to off take energy correctly in the Barkly region.

“Data centers would be one opportunity. As I’ve said previously, this particular region does have opportunities to house data centers. That’s one of several market opportunities that we have investigated, and continue to investigate.

“The project is able to move the execution quickly. It’s able to deliver low cost, firm, reliable power, and is able to grow into a significant scale. And that’s of interest to many customers, including data centres.”

The company said in an earlier statement that other industries looking for such power supplies include artificial intelligence and hyperscale data centres, green fuels manufacturing, sustainable aviation fuels, and critical minerals processing.

“You can imagine it’s a very large and complicated project,” Willemsen-Bell said. “We continue to make progress with customers. We continue to make progress with suppliers.

We continue to make progress with investors that would be able to support future development phases of the project, and we continue to make progress on with partners.

“Today, it’s a momentous occasion where we signed the agreement with key partners of this project that will be with the project the life of the project, so we are pleased and proud that we’ve come to that agreement with the native title holders.

More information:https://reneweconomy.com.au/suncable-aims-to-deliver-its-first-firmed-power-from-australia-biggest-solar-project-by-end-of-decade/