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Sun Cable - Twiggy & Mike CB funding $210 mil

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frugal.rock

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I always wonder about these grand schemes usually coming at the apex of boom times when money is cheap and talk free
I really wish them well but also really hope the Australian taxpayers will not end up paying the electricity bill of Singapore
 
As far as I can see Twiggy has been playing hardball with Sun Cable in terms of missed timetables and too expensive admin.

Twiggy is notoriously tight and demanding of any projects he has invested in and this seems no exception. I don't necessarily think it is dead . Just some very strong discussions and perhaps some new players.

Comment was sought from Forrest via his Squadron Energy unit. Guardian Australia understands the billionaire investors disagreed just before Christmas over the arrangements for emergency funds in the order of $60m.

Sun Cable was burning through cash rapidly, with high costs including offices in five cities, a source said. The company was also reportedly missing agreed targets, including the securing of Indonesian approvals, that were holding up deals with customers.

Squadron Energy may yet remain an investor but for that to happen, changes would need to made, Guardian Australia was told.

“There was a deadlock at the shareholder level that couldn’t be resolved behind closed doors,” one person familiar with Sun Cable’s plans said.

Giant solar farm project in doubt after disagreement between Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest

Australian billionaires had backed $30bn Sun Cable venture designed to help power Darwin, Indonesia and Singapore but the company has gone into voluntary administration
www.theguardian.com
 
qldfrog said:
I always wonder about these grand schemes usually coming at the apex of boom times when money is cheap and talk free
I really wish them well but also really hope the Australian taxpayers will not end up paying the electricity bill of Singapore
Click to expand...
is that a win for your 'crystal ball ' ?
 
Dona Ferentes said:
I have only two questions:
1. Did the Singaporeans ever ask for this project?
2. Have the local landowners been consulted?
Click to expand...

There have been pointed questions about the economic viability of this project. A longish article but it does explore the issues around this mammoth proposal.

Market disconnect: Clouds gather over Twiggy, Cannon-Brookes' $30b Sun Cable project

It's billed as a poster child for Australian renewable energy exports, but Sun Cable's plan to build the world's biggest solar farm draws scepticism in its target market, Singapore.
www.abc.net.au
 
sptrawler said:
It always smelt like a land grab, looking for a cause, to me.
Click to expand...
And a tax loss of fiat money transformed in real acres of property.
Not just cheap, actually paid to own ..genius... Twiggy 1 taxpayers 0, and even some feel good and PR thrown in.
A nice summary of the whole greewashing movement taking place this decade.
Add EV forced march in the same bag?
 
I wonder if this will eventually happen, but maybe focussed on Australian power requirements? I've always been suspicious how a 4000km long cable was going to hold and transfer energy over the distance, especially in zero degree water. Imagine if there was a fault somewhere along the line? Do you have to pull the whole thing up to find the glitch? Maybe sending it over the desert to QLD or south to Adelaide for distribution will work better?

Still also unsure how that many solar panels is good for the land/environment. Which Aboriginal clan approved that? $Caching$....


 
sptrawler said:
I don't think the penny has dropped on those issues, yet.
Click to expand...
Just drove 400km west but on my way back near Widgee drove past:

Woolooga solar | Lightsource bp

Lightsource bp Australia's 10MWp project in Lower Wonga, Queensland is due to start construction in Q4 2020. Learn more here.
www.lightsourcebp.com
what a disaster:
just as you enter in the lush man height tall grass area of higher rainfall, hectares of panels with no sheep or cow grazing under, just cleared and chemical sprayed into a desert
not too steep so land which could be cultivated or at very least have highly productive grazing and in an area which get monster stoems in summer so potentially 500 hectares of solar panels smashed in oblivion at the first serious hail storm ..
I am all for solar, even mini solar farms but gosh this is sheer stupidity.
While we can "eat" petrol..or coal, we can not eat power..well not as easily as petrol/coal/gas
WTF are they thinking...
 
That's what I was aluding with the Twiggy Sun Solar issue, I'm sure Twiggy realises eventually there will be a backlash for all the clearing of land and a stop will be put on it.
That IMO will be why he doesnt want to run a cable to supply Singapore, much better idea to use the generation to value add, by making hydrogen and selling that.
Much broader market, than a high risk cable to a dedicated single market, the issues with China have highlighted the risk with that plan.
 
Looks like an auction will happen, let's see how the young buck goes and how much confidence he has in the undersea cable brain fart.

Let's be honest how would it survive if the Chinese/Malaysia/Thailand said we will run a transmission line and supply electricity cheaper to Singapore? All of a sudden Singapore says, look it is cheaper to get power from a new source, then you have 4,000km of scrap copper, sounds like and Australian brain fart to me.
But that is only my take.

Emergency $65m funding for Sun Cable accepted​

Administrators of the $30bn energy project start the sale process which could lead to a clash of billionaires.
 
qldfrog said:
I am all for solar, even mini solar farms but gosh this is sheer stupidity.
Click to expand...
Bottom line is we've got vast areas of land in Australia that aren't good for much at all. Meanwhile transmission lines, even long ones, are absolutely 100% proven technology.

So there's simply no reason to be putting solar farms on prime agricultural land. It's just not sensible unless we're talking about a few panels to run something on the farm.

Trouble is, land use isn't something we're overly good at rationally sorting out......
 
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