Giant solar project backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes wins green tick

The nation’s largest renewables project has won environmental approvals from the Albanese government, with the NT development, backed by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, set to produce enough power for three million homes.

Billionaire and Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, who has backed the mega renewable energy project SunCable.

Australia’s biggest renewables project, SunCable, has won environmental approvals from the Albanese government, with the giant development in the Northern Territory set to produce enough power for three million homes.

Backed by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, the Australia-Asia Power Link will be the biggest solar farm in Australia and generate up to four gigawatts of renewable energy.

The 12,000-hectare solar farm project is on a former pastoral station between Elliott and Tennant Creek. Environmental approvals include an 800km transmission line to Darwin and an underwater cable to the end of Australian waters.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the go-ahead came with strict conditions to protect nature including requirements to “completely avoid important species” such as the greater bilby and critical habitat.

“This massive project is a generation-defining piece of infrastructure,” Ms Plibersek said. “It will be the largest solar precinct in the world – and heralds Australia as the world leader in green energy. It will mean more than 14,300 new jobs in northern Australia, and it will turbocharge our research and manufacturing capacity in renewable technology.”

The SunCable project.

The green approval follows SunCable in July securing in-principle environmental approval from the NT government and the NT Environment Protection Authority. The project, which plans to include the world’s largest solar plant, battery, and longest undersea power cable, will now enter the next phase of development. However, it is some way from materialising.

SunCable would be a defining moment for Mr Cannon-Brookes, who has taken a prominent role in leading Australia’s energy transition through his advocacy stake in AGL Energy and clean-energy investments via private investment company, Grok.

In its first iteration, SunCable has plans to deliver 900MW of green power to industrial customers in Darwin. The project also aims to supply 1.75GW of electricity to Singapore by an undersea cable stretching more than 4000km.

But the scale of the challenge has been disparaged, with critics questioning the investment rationale for sending renewable energy to Singapore. At 4200km, the link to Singapore would be more than five times bigger than the longest submarine link yet proposed – the 767km Viking link between the UK and Denmark – testing engineering capabilities and exposing the project to sovereign risk as it flows near Indonesian territorial waters.

The decision follows the head of a $1bn mining project in NSW criticising Ms Plibersek’s decision to declare an Indigenous protection order over the project, claiming the move would threaten all future developments including renewable energy, farming and housing.

Originally published as Giant solar project backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes wins green tick