A bold plan to send Australian solar power to Southeast Asia through the world's longest undersea energy cable is a step closer to development.
SunCable's Australia-Asia Power Link project has been granted approval by the Northern Territory's Environmental Protection Authority.
The decision is a major milestone and provides significant momentum for the project, SunCable managing director Cameron Garnsworthy says.
"This approval allows us to progress the development, commercial and engineering activities required to advance the project to final investment decision targeted in 2027," he said on Tuesday.
SunCable plans to collect NT sunshine using a solar farm as big as a cattle station and supply renewable energy to land-deprived Singapore.
The project is the world's largest renewable energy and transmission project in development and is likely to be one of the largest economic industrial developments in the nation's history, the company says.
Over two stages, the AAPowerLink development aims to deliver up to four gigawatts of green electricity to green industrial customers in Darwin and 1.75GW to customers in Singapore via a 4300km subsea cable.
Electricity supply is expected to start in the early 2030s.
The environmental approval covers the development of a solar generation and utility-scale storage site, and about 800km of high-voltage transmission lines in the NT.
Also granted approval is a subsea cable running from a converter station to be built in Darwin to the outer limits of Australia's territorial waters and the Indonesian border.
SunCable's next steps in the project include planning related to NT electricity supply and continuing its negotiations with traditional owners for land use.
The company will also work on developing an additional generation site capable of producing up to 4GW for local customers, and investigate adding wind generation into the project.
