Billionaires tip more cash Into Australia’s solar export vision

Atlassian Corp. co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest have committed more cash to a A$30 billion ($21.9 billion) project to export solar power from Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore via an undersea cable. 

Sun Cable Pty Ltd. completed a A$210 million Series B capital raising with existing shareholders to accelerate the progress of the Australia-Asia PowerLink, as well as other projects in its portfolio, the company said in a statement Monday. The raising was led by Cannon-Brookes’ investment group Grok Ventures and Forrest’s Squadron Energy. 

Sun Cable plans to lay a 4,200-kilometer (2,600-mile) high-voltage cable to supply enough electricity to meet 15% of Singapore’s demand from a giant solar and battery complex deep in the Outback. The project will also supply the northern Australian city of Darwin when it starts operating in 2027. 

“This brings Australia one step closer to realizing our renewables exporting potential,” Cannon-Brookes said in a statement. “We can power the world with clean energy and Sun Cable is harnessing that at scale.”

Cannon-Brookes has been a vocal campaigner for the clean energy transition in Australia, which still gets around 60% of its power from coal, teaming up with investment giant Brookfield last month in a failed bid for generation company AGL Energy Ltd. The partners had planned to accelerate the closure of AGL’s coal-fired plants and replace them with renewables. 

Forrest is looking to transform his iron-ore empire into a major clean energy producer over the next decade, and has been scouring the planet for opportunities to invest in renewables and green hydrogen projects.