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Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

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Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#201

Post by londons_explore »

sangnoir wrote: post #187
lazide wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really difficult to make solid state components that work at million+ volts. It’s comparatively quite easy to make transformers that work at million+ volts. So anytime you need to do any sort of voltage boosting, conversion, or the like, DC is going to be expensive and relatively fragile compared to AC. If it’s just once, that’s not bad. If it’s often, that sucks.

> It’s really difficult to make solid state components that work at million+ volts. You can split (or add up) the million volts as transmitted at either end so the individual components only work across a small fraction of the 1MV potential difference. This is how can get 12V from 1.5V batteries or use 1V LEDs from a 12V line.

That principle doesn't work as well at high voltages because generally it's a pain for a rack of equipment (such as solar panels) to have a potential between them and ground of 1 million volts.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#202

Post by denismi »

aatharuv wrote: post #195
threeseed wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this really applies to Australia. a) Politicians are typically more educated than say in the US. b) They rely heavily on the public service who are experienced to do the heavy lifting. c) The jobs aren't in the areas that matter for Federal elections.

Your politicans, like Malcolm Turnbull in 2017, believe that the laws of Australia trump the laws of Mathematics, in the context of trying to weaken strong encryption. In at least some areas, they need a better education.

The laws of Australia do trump the laws of mathematics in that context though?

If the government forces Google to push out a version of FacebookMessenger.apk to the Play Store account belonging to janetlovescats93@gmail.com, which uploads hourly plaintext chat logs to a Google Drive folder that authorities can read, then I'm really not sure what the mathematics of Facebook Messenger's encryption can do?

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#203

Post by energy123 »

vlasky wrote: post #139

I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government. The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built! I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses. Back in December 2015,…

It's not up to the government to determine cost feasibility of a private project.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#204

Post by energy123 »

csomar wrote: post #88
m2f2 wrote: post #32

Significant turning tables moment when big bully China aims at being the sole APAC superpower. That might explain why Singapore are interested and why 4200km of cable aren't such a big issue.

Not sure how a 4200km cable is more secure than a few gas tanks. I am actually surprised they’d go with this as it’s impossible to monitor the whole range of the cable.

Gas imports from Indonesia can be cut off in exactly the same way so there's no large difference.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#205

Post by [deleted] »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #188
fidotron wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is nothing. Try Chile to China: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/15/chile-wants-to-export...

A great example of bullshit megaprojects that governments announce with no real intention of ever implementing. I searched and tried to find something recent about this project. Pretty much everything I found was around the announcement in Nov 2021 - the latest article I found was this one from Jan 2022, https://dialogue.earth/en/energy/50155-chile-underwater-cabl... , which states the project "does not yet have feas…

[deleted]

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#206

Post by viewtransform »

vlasky wrote: post #139

I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government. The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built! I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses. Back in December 2015,…

DW did a good summary of the Sun Cable Australia-Singapore project https://youtu.be/42b6xJFUSss?t=206

20GW solar farm, 42GWh battery, 3 cables totalling 12,900km of HVDC cable, $23 billion cost.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#207

Post by Arbalest »

I keep seeing stuff about the viability of the cable being laid. The thing that gets me though, is the timezone shift around peak solar generation is the wrong way around. In Australia at least, peak demand is in the evening, when people get home and turn on their ACs, or cooking devices etc. I don't know about the demand patterns in Singapore, but given their heavy use of AC, I imagine their demand for power does not peter off in the evening much.

Meanwhile the peak of solar generation around midday in Australia is being sent off to Singapore in the morning who are a couple hours behind us. Presumably the morning is when the least AC will be used there. By the evening in Singapore, it'll be night in Central Australia, meaning there will still have to be plenty of peaking generation or, will need a massive ton of batteries which has still not quite there for grid scaling.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#208

Post by onethought »

Arbalest wrote: post #207

I keep seeing stuff about the viability of the cable being laid. The thing that gets me though, is the timezone shift around peak solar generation is the wrong way around. In Australia at least, peak demand is in the evening, when people get home and turn on their ACs, or cooking devices etc. I don't know about the demand patterns in Singapore, but given their heavy use of AC, I imagine their demand for power does no…

There are batteries included as part of this project. So I don't think time really matters.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#209

Post by onethought »

roenxi wrote: post #197
ceejayoz wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has to evacuate a city when someone breaks a solar panel, though. Deaths aren’t the only parameter here. Nuclear safety events are rare, rarely fatal, but can be very large in impacted area.

That isn't entirely fair. 1) The risk of evacuations happening is tiny and I'm not even convinced it is still a factor. We've not yet seen a messy meltdown of any plant designed and built after Chernobyl in 1986 and designs have changed a lot since then. 2) We don't know what a large-scale solar disaster looks like yet, but they might happen. For example I recall the Wikipedia page for the Year Without Summer [0] - w…

It's not fair to point out very real impacts of Nuclear failures. But it's fair to compare to hypothetical-yet-to-occur "Mass Solar failures".

Solar relies on Light, just like life does. So you are kind of referring to mass extinction events. no?

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#210

Post by Arbalest »

onethought wrote: post #208
Arbalest wrote: post #207

I keep seeing stuff about the viability of the cable being laid. The thing that gets me though, is the timezone shift around peak solar generation is the wrong way around. In Australia at least, peak demand is in the evening, when people get home and turn on their ACs, or cooking devices etc. I don't know about the demand patterns in Singapore, but given their heavy use of AC, I imagine their demand for power does no…

There are batteries included as part of this project. So I don't think time really matters.

Yes, but will it wipe out the advantage of solar by adding cost to the generation capacity? As I said, batteries still aren't cheap, and their replacement lifetime is still not good. We could rely on future technology, but is that a sound investment plan?

If this project is viable, then it'll probably be more viable to have a massive solar farm coming from India, where the timezone shift is in the correct direction, and it would outcompete Australia.

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