“We already have giant fibre optic cables on the seafloor for...

“We already have giant fibre optic cables on the seafloor for our internet. The biggest risk, not so much to human safety or environmental safety, the risk is that those cables might get damaged.”

“The biggest risk with a power cable is you have a single point of failure. And so if there’s a cyclone or disaster or that cable gets damaged or is faulty in any way, then you can have potentially a massive stop to our ability to export energy.”

Assessing risks

Australia already has a high-voltage cable under the sea in Bass Strait linking the Tasmanian and Victorian electricity grids.

The Basslink cable feeds energy in both directions, allowing both states to offload excess electricity.

Singapore’s electricity grid relies heavily on gas imported from Malaysia and Indonesia.

“Electricity in Asia generally is quite expensive,” he said.

“So we have a low-cost resource, but until now we didn’t have the ability to transmit electricity over extremely long distances.”

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-sunshine-could-soon-be-farmed-to-power-an-asian-nation

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