The world is bathed in enough sun to meet humanity ’s vigor needs many time over , but the best places to reap that igniter and the places where it is needed seldom coincide . The old dreaming of transmitting baron from the comeupance to cities thousands of kilometre away may be on the verge of coming true with two elephantine task under ontogeny . The more advanced of these intends to go undersea cables from Australia to Singapore and has justreceived supportfrom the Indonesian Government , through whose waters the cable would take to the woods .
As thesecondmost obtusely populated sovereign nation on Earth , Singapore is particularly badly - suited to give its own vigour . presently , its electricity relies largely on fossil - gas pedal - fired exponent stations . With so much of the island ’s residence and spot being sky - scrapers , rooftop solar could only power a small fraction of the building below . This has instigate the theme of construct vast solar farms elsewhere and transmit the electricity to Singapore .
Sun Cable , a company established by some of Australia ’s flush individuals has the most ambitious programme . Originally proposed as a 10 GigaWatt plant near Elliot , one of the sunniest place on Earth , the vision has now grow to a 17 - 20 GW behemoth . For equivalence , by 2008 there had been only 14 GW of photovoltaic cells installed in the account of humanity .
If the task goes leading powerlines will sway the electrical energy bring about 800 kilometers ( 500 miles ) to Darwin , where a small portion will be used to power the city . The rest will be sent through a High Voltage DC cable television that will wind between Indonesian island to Singapore . During the sunniest part of the day , some of the electricity will be used to accuse a 36 - 42 GWh assault and battery ( 30 times larger than the current world record ) to keep the recipient urban center power well into the eve .
The goal of the project is not just to put up Singapore with clean energy and make a profit for the investors . The projection is also intend to kickstart a much larger Australian solar manufacture . Despite havinginvented the most widely usedsolar cells in the world , and having abundant sunlight , Australia produces almost none of the solar cell it practice today . Sun Cable hopes the secure demand they will be offer will exchange that .
Mike Cannon - Brookes , one of Sun Cable ’s chief investor , is also set up money into SunDrive – who are seeking to commercialise technology thatreplaces the silverin solar cells with cheaper copper – and5b , who have invented cheaper manner to install solar farms .
If Sun Cable come through it will also light a track for similar undertaking elsewhere . This workweek a10.5 GW solar / wind farm in Moroccowas announce , with the intention to send power 3,800 kilometers ( 2,400 miles ) to the UK . The projection is a year or two behind Sun Cable ’s in development .
Others , however , have more local plans for powering Singapore . Recognizing the shortage of commonwealth , Singapore has builtfloating solar plantson local reservoir , but these are too little to provide even 1 pct of the urban center ’s needs . Duriankang Reservoir in Indonesia ’s Batam Island is much larger , leading to a proposal to construct a2.2 GW float solar farmthere , with the electricity sent a modest 50 kilometre ( 30 miles ) to Singapore .
