Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

Post by londons_explore » Wed, Aug 21, 2024, 4:37 PM UTC

coryrc wrote: post #160

londons_explore wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power cables are getting cheaper and cheaper. The expensive part used to be the voltage conversion stations at the ends, but with mass production of MOSFETs for EV's these have now become far cheaper than the JFET's and other exotic silicon that used to be used. In turn, that means voltages can be higher, letting one use more of the cheaper PVC or XLPE insulating material and less expensive aluminium for the same amo…

> The expensive part used to be the voltage conversion stations at the ends, but with mass production of MOSFETs for EV's these have now become far cheaper than the JFET's and other exotic silicon that used to be used. Why do you believe these things are related? HVDC lines operate in the hundreds-of-kilovolts range. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink operates at 400kV. There are no MOSFETs or JFETs…

Post by BillSaysThis » Wed, Aug 21, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #110

londons_explore wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power cables are getting cheaper and cheaper. The expensive part used to be the voltage conversion stations at the ends, but with mass production of MOSFETs for EV's these have now become far cheaper than the JFET's and other exotic silicon that used to be used. In turn, that means voltages can be higher, letting one use more of the cheaper PVC or XLPE insulating material and less expensive aluminium for the same amo…

Would they be using AC or DC? I heard that very long cables using AC can be more lossy

Post by Eumenes » Wed, Aug 21, 2024, 5:06 PM UTC

hunglee2 wrote: post #7

Australia is going to have make it Rd2 of being an energy commodity superpower. 40 years of exporting coal to China, it can look forward to 1000's years of export solar to APAC.

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Aug 21, 2024, 5:14 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #21

dyauspitr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indonesia probably has enough land for its own panels.

Indonesia is ~ 17 thousand islands, many steep equatorial jungled volcanic slopes and at 275.5 million is the fourth highest population for a country globally. Land is in tight demand with food a priority over panels and issues that may not be apparent (clear slopes leads to instability, and keeping them clear is a Sisyphean task, etc).

Post by scrlk » Wed, Aug 21, 2024, 5:33 PM UTC

duckmysick wrote: post #123

littlestymaar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how well the Australian project is going (it's a long running project that's already late before even starting) I'm convinced that this project will have the same woes which comes from the mere fact of being massive long-term infrastructure projects and have nothing to do with nuclear being special. By the way, do you know what cost the most money on the HPC project? Loan interests, by a very large margin. Beca…

> By the way, do you know what cost the most money on the HPC project? Loan interests, by a very large margin. Because of the risk of project failure given the lack of government guarantees, they had to borrow at a baffling 9% interest rate in a world if zero interest rate. This is the insanity that drove the cost to the sky, not the engineering side of things. This is the first time I've heard of this, so I did a li…