Sun Cable, the company behind a massive solar farm and power export project planned for the Northern Territory, has gone into voluntary administration.
Key points:
– The company’s ambition was to build the world’s largest solar project
– Its plan was to build a giant 20-gigawatt solar farm in the NT
– Sun Cable also wanted to build a 4,200-kilometre-long subsea cable to SingaporeThe company, whose major investors include billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, provided a vague statement about why it collapsed:
“The appointment followed the absence of alignment with the objectives of all shareholders,” it said.
“Whilst funding proposals were provided, consensus on the future direction and funding structure of the company could not be achieved.”
The ABC understands that Sun Cable’s major investors, Mr Forrest and Mr Cannon-Brookes, had disagreements about the funding and direction of the company.
These included the significant amounts of cash that Sun Cable was spending, and its failure to achieve certain milestones — as required by its venture capital funding agreement.
The planet weeps.
“The farm, which would cover 12,000 hectares — equivalent to 12,000 rugby pitches — would be backed by the world’s biggest battery network.”
That’s 120 square kilometers, or about the size of two million of my back yards.
I wonder what is the downside of constructing such a huge heat sucker. One small nuclear plant could replace this thing and not take up a tenth the hectarage.
Why does this installation feel like California’s High Speed (sic) train to nowhere that nobody wants and no one will ever see completed?
“Sun Cable collapses after dispute between billionaire investors Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes”
Yeah sure, that’s why it collapsed.
Well, typically investors want to make money. When you invest, you expect certain milestones to be passed that indicate you will make money. When all signs point to you NOT making money, a wise investor will typically call it quits at that point.
A wiser investor would never have bought the bridge to begin with, but at least even some of these dumb monkeys can realise once they were conned that it was indeed a con.
“One small nuclear plant could replace this thing ..”
…and provide much more reliable power for a much longer time.
They should have called me, I would have advised against it.
30,000 acres of habitat ruined for virtue signalling. The watermelons will kill all life on earth if given a chance.
“30,000 acres of habitat ruined for virtue signalling. ”
No mention of squibbly widgets so nothing there worth saving (/s)
What? The estimated project cost was $30 Billion … but they’d only raised $210 Million? Sooooo … they were only short $29 Billion, 790 Million … ? What? Blackrock and Vanguard couldn’t shake enough ESG money out of their socially conscious investors?
And how much would they have to charge for their “renewable” solar energy … to finance the complete replacement of their panels and batteries in about 20 years? That sounds like another $30 … nay $40 Billion in 20 years. Sound like a couple of really dim-witted Billionaires.
They weren’t dumb. Their scam plan didn’t work. Instead of raising $30 billion, and walking away with say a billion or two in management fees, they had to settle for a few million.
Indeed!
Kenji, if this deal goes through, the planet won’t weep. The investors will weep.
The Impact of Dust on Solar Panel Efficiency
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph240/fidawi1/
You’re welcome.
The project was utterly absurd on political grounds alone. The 4200 km cable had to go through the territorial waters of Indonesia. Added to which, the maintenance costs of submarine transmission are enormous. Financial failure of the transmission link across the vastly shorter Straits of Belle Isle is the principal reason why the development of the Lower Churchill is an abject failure.
Sun Cable richly deserved to be buried in failure and oblivion for its economic and political insanity alone. The notion that solar panels could be serviced and maintained in the deserts of Western Australia were equally ridiculous. Any investors dumb enough to invest in this deserved to lose everything from sheer stupidity.
Yes, enormous distance. Equivalent of burying a line from Toronto to Vancouver. Likely makes more sense to float solar panels in the South China Sea.
dont give them ideas.
The transmission losses alone over 4200km would be staggering. Depending on all the factors it could exceed 15%. No wonder but this is a known issue they shouldn’t have overlooked
Only 15%?
Seriously, I thought it would be more.
When you’re only generating 2% of installed capacity, 15% is nothing.
“The notion that solar panels could be serviced and maintained in the deserts of Western Australia were equally ridiculous. ”
Point of order – True but that project was slated for the Northern Territory
Solar in the tropical desert doesn’t work. The green lunatics have endless projects in Alberta clicking along at 1% of capacity in winter. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Amazon bought all the power from the biggest “farm”, near Vulcan.
they’re stoopid too?
Who flung dung
What power..?
Negligible…
Yes, they are Stupid…
Yes. Amazon is the king of woke stupidity.
They got rid of all their solar roofs after numerous fires.
“Plug power” was a bust. Hydrogen powered forklifts just plain suck.
and the best solar farm in canada , in medicine hat. closed its doors almost the same week . couldnt make a dime
There’s only one solution … the government has to step in and take over.
As long as government keeps hanging free money in front of rich kids.. They will continue to pretend they have something useful to offer this world..
imagine , one of the sunniest places on earth , here in Canada they are putting such foolishness up by the arctic circle where at the best of times the sun is at a low angle and half the year its not there at all.
This sounds like something you would hear from the old Soviet Union. The Russian Communists would announce another Grand and Glorious Socialist Hero Project! It would be record breaking, and a feat of Socialist Scientific Principles!
And then quietly abandoned a few years later.
Just imagine, they would receive very little sun in the winter, when it’s needed most. All that snow in the winter months would prevent these panels from working, when it’s needed most. Plus the labour intensity just to them clean in the winter, when it’s needed most.
Can’t make them work in Northern Australia but let’s build more in Canada. Green jobs! SMH…
Reclamation comes to mind. Who will pay?
Where’s the landfill?
What’re the “Carbon Emissions” … like, Who cares?
“full-cycle economic assessment be damned”
Not directly related, but has anyone priced the cost of *reliable* solar + storage? By “reliable” I mean solar with storage that can deliver through five days of cloudy wintertime weather.
Back of the envelope sums suggest the capital cost per MegaWatt is in the range of US$50 to US$150M. Overwhelming majority of the cost is for batteries, which need to be replaced every (say) eight years. This means the wholesale cost works out to be US$0.70 to US$2.10 per kW.hr. Retail maybe $1.00 – $2.50.
In contrast, wholesale price of electricity generation in Australia around US$0.12 per kW.hr.
It occurs to me that none of these hair brained schemes were ever really meant to actually work. Even the regular Joe’s like us can understand the idiocy of it, and there are many much smarter people on this planet than most of us.
Sooooo,,,, I’m thinking this was a deliberate intent to milk various economies for cash and investments from idiot know nothings such as politicians and greedy people just eyeballing the potential profits. You know, the kind of folk that don’t see the bigger picture because of their very small minds. If we consider the plans of the WEF evil, and that they are intent on destroying the wealth of nations to install themselves as our overlords, this all comes across as another aspect of their long term plans. It’s pretty obvious if you couple it to the useful idiots they have pushing the green agenda!
So it wasn’t intended to actually work, but is just another piece of the WEF evil agenda puzzle! Fooling the normies and destroying the wealth of nations!