Ambitious Renewable Energy Sun Cable Project: Undersea Cable Is Not Viable

Mr Forrest confirmed his support for a “game-changing solar and battery” project in the Northern Territory through John Hartman, the chairman of his private energy company Squadron.

Mr Hartman asserted that Sun Cable was “not commercially viable” in its present form, and he recommended that it would be more appropriate to use the initiative to create ammonia or green hydrogen.

“As Australia’s largest renewable energy company, Squadron Energy is best placed to help Australia become a green energy exporting superpower by generating renewable energy to produce green hydrogen and green ammonia,” Hartman said.

The Sun Cable project anticipated that the extremely long extension cord between Australia and Singapore would be difficult to construct and worrisomely weak. Bevan Slattery, an Australian businessman, founder and CEO of SODA, who has operated companies that construct and manage underwater data cables, provided the evaluation.

The path from Australia to Singapore passes through deep water, oil pipelines, multiple telecoms cables, and some of the most hazardous waters in the world for those cables, according to a lengthy LinkedIn post by Slattery. He believed new ships would be required to construct and maintain the cable.

Cables break all the time, and he also evaluated the cable as “unrecoverable” if it was damaged. Due to the nearly continual geological action along its route, this one would have a higher than average potential of breaking.

Despite the recent “billionaire bust-up” and the significant delays and challenges that the Sun Cable project has faced, the Australian Minister for Energy, Josh Bowen, remains upbeat and excited about the project. He believes the project is still moving forward, and the government is committed to completing it. The project has the potential to create thousands of jobs and generate significant economic benefits for the region and the country as a whole.

Visit our page to learn more about ministers’ confidence despite Sun Cable Project’s failure.