The sale of SunCable’s assets, including the shares in its operating subsidiaries, to Grok Ventures has officially been completed, with Grok principal Mike Cannon-Brookes geared to progress SunCable’s flagship project, AAPowerLink.
“The green energy transition remains the greatest economic opportunity of our time,” Cannon-Brookes said.
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“SunCable’s AAPowerLink project has all the component parts to make the next great Australian infrastructure initiative possible. It will create more local jobs and support our green manufacturing and renewable energy industries. It’s set to deliver huge volumes of green energy to Darwin—powering a burgeoning green industry opportunity in the NT.
“There’s huge upside for both Australia and our neighbours, Singapore and Indonesia. We look forward to working with our partners across Asia to drive this.”
To support SunCable’s focus, as well as to enable the most efficient and effective delivery of the AAPowerLink project, SunCable has reorganised into two project streams:
- SunCable Australia: the onshore component of the AAPowerLink project comprising generation of renewable electricity anchored by what is expected to be the world’s largest solar array in the Northern Territory, delivery of these electrons to Darwin, and supplying the offshore component of the AAPowerLink as well as third party industrial power consumers located in/near Darwin. This development will be overseen by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, who have a proven track record of delivering and financing mega-scale renewable projects to power energy intensive customer operations.
- SunCable International: the offshore component of the AAPowerLink project comprising the delivery of electrons via sub-sea cable to highly credit worthy global corporate offtakers in Singapore.
Mark Branson will continue as chief development officer of SunCable Australia and Mitesh Patel has been appointed as interim CEO and chief operating officer of SunCable International.
SunCable’s immediate priorities are to progress the required regulatory approvals to advance the AAPowerLink. SunCable will lodge its submission to the Singaporean Energy Market Authority (EMA) to gain the energy import conditional licence required to deliver the AAPowerLink, later this month. SunCable is seeking to support Singapore’s stated objective of importing at least 4GW from low-carbon sources by 2035.
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“Additionally, we will continue to engage with the Indonesian government to obtain the required licence to lay subsea cable through its territorial waters; and work with the Australian Government to support its ambitions,” the company said in a statement.
In addition to the AAPowerLink project, SunCable is set to establish an advanced High Voltage (HV) subsea cable manufacturing and testing facility, with AAPowerLink as an anchor customer. SunCable is in discussions with established global subsea cable manufacturers to jointly develop, construct and operate this facility.
