The world's 'largest' planned intercontinental renewable power system, with up to 20 GW solar PV capacity, Sun Cable's Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPowerLink) project has raised AUD 210 million ($152 million) from its existing investors, led by Grok Ventures and Squadron Energy.
While Grok Ventures is the private investment vehicle for one of Australia's richest men Mike Cannon-Brookes and his wife, Squadron Energy is an energy company in the empire of another Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest.
Sun Cable said the proceeds through this Series B capital raise will support the development of the AAPowerLink that eventually aims to connect Australia to Singapore via HVDC subsea cables transmitting electricity from Darwin, via Indonesia.
"This capital raise will enable the delivery of renewable solar power from Australia to Singapore, advance our other multi GW scale projects, and support the progress of key facilitating assets," said Sun Cable Founder and CEO David Griffin.
As cornerstone investors of the project, Brookes and Forrest have helped the project dimensions grow from an initially proposed 10 GW capacity to now to be between 17 GW to 20 GW capacity on 12,000-hectare land, supported by 36 to 42 GWh of energy storage as dispatchable 24×7.
The company has already secured a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with various partners to explore and co-develop 7 GW solar power capacity with storage on several Indonesian islands that fall en route to Singapore. In November 2021, it launched an expression of interest (EOI) for customers in Singapore interested in procuring electricity from the AAPowerLink project (see EOI For Offtakers From AAPowerLink Project).