Australia granted “major project status” to an ambitious A$22 billion ($21.6 billion) plan to export power from a giant solar farm in the country’s north to Southeast Asia via undersea cable.
The status recognizes the “strategic significance” of the project, which is expected to inject billions of dollars into the economy and create thousands of jobs, Angus Taylor, minister for energy and emissions reduction, said in a statement Wednesday.
The Australia-ASEAN Power Link envisions connecting the world’s largest solar farm and battery system in Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore and Indonesia via a 3,700 kilometer undersea cable. Similar proposals for long-haul, transnational power shipments have been pursued in other regions, including from North Africa to Europe or from Mongolia to Japan and South Korea.