Aussie John Telfer and Kiwi Richard Homewood, founders of New Zealand’s first solar farm, have proposed a trans-Tasman electricity interconnector between Australia and New Zealand called Taslink.
Taslink is a 2-3GW HVDC submarine cable extending 2,600km across the Tasman Sea to facilitate the trade of surplus electricity between the neighbouring countries.
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To be laid nearly 5km below sea level, Taslink would be the deepest of its kind in the world. Homewood and Telfer are seeking private funding for the ambitious project, which would be New Zealand’s second interconnector, and Australia’s fourth.
New Zealand’s North and South islands share electricity via HVDC inteconnector, while Australia currently has Basslink, a 370km HVDC cable linking Victoria and Tasmania. Australia is also developing Marinus Link—a new sub-sea interconnector between Victoria and Tasmania, as well as the proposed Australia–Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink)—which will comprise the world’s largest solar plant, the world’s largest battery, and the world’s longest submarine power cable connecting Darwin to Singapore.
Homewood said Taslink was the answer to New Zealand’s soaring electricity prices.
“The thing about New Zealand and Australia is that we have a two hour time difference, so we have a morning peak followed by Australia’s morning peak,” Taslink co-director Richard Homewood said.
“We also have our peak demand in winter time, when we have cold and dry winters, whereas Australia has the highest demand on hot days in summer.
“We will be purchasing power from the electricity markets in both countries, so we will have generators in New Zealand producing power that could be purchased by Taslink and sold into the Australian market,” he said.
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“On the same way you could have generators in Australia… Say, solar, because Australia has an abundance of daytime solar.”
“If we take last year as an example and we look only at the month of August, in relation to that period our independent advice indicates Taslink could have saved New Zealanders $400 million on power costs in the month of August alone,” Homewood said.
