A huge PV power station, perhaps the largest worldwide, may be set up near Tennant Creek in Australia’s Northern Territory in the future. The power station is set to become a new landmark in the region, joining Uluru, one of the country’s sacred sites.
The projected PV power station, dubbed "Sun Cable," will boast a total capacity of 3 GW and will occupy 15,000 hectares in space. Scheduled for groundbreaking in 2023 and grid connection in 2027, the station will entail a construction cost of 20 billion Australian dollars (US$14.1 billion) and is expected to create over 2,000 job openings.
The station will employ the Maverick installation technology of the PV firm 5B, which utilizes a modular design, prefabrication, and rapid assembly. The solar panels for the station will be installed on foldable module frames for transport and will be unfolded once they are being deployed at the site.
To assure a stable power supply, the power station will be furnished with a large-scale energy-storage battery system to facilitate the transfer of power by the grid.
In addition to meeting the needs of the local residents in Australia, the newly built PV power station from the country will also supply its power output to Singapore via a 3,800-kilometer high-voltage direct-current cable, which will pass Indonesia. The power station is expected to eventually account for up to one fifth of the total power supply in Singapore.
This is not the first long-haul power supply project in the industry. In 2017, the U.K. investment firm Low Carbon officially joined hands with the PV power firm NurEnergie in applying for the Tunisian government’s TuNur project, which called for the building of a major PV power station in the Sahara desert.
(Collaborative media: TechNews, first photo is for illustration, courtesy of JR via Flickr CC BY 2.0)