Sun Cable lodges plan for giant multi-million dollar East Arm solar facility

SUN Cable has lodged a development application to build a giant multimillion-dollar Maverick solar array assembly facility

SUN Cable has lodged a development application to build a giant multimillion-dollar Maverick solar array assembly facility at East Arm, living up to its promise to Darwin for its $20bn Barkly solar farm project.

The facility is proposed to be constructed over three parcels of Land Corporation land with a combined site area of 38,824.75 sqm. Sun Cable Manufacturing Pty Ltd has entered into an agreement to lease and subsequently purchase the three sites within the Darwin Business Park from the Land Corporation.

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The $20bn Sun Cable project, which will supply solar power from Tennant Creek to Singapore via the world’s longest subsea high voltage cable, has been forecast to generate 1000 jobs at the East Arm assembly facility.

Another 1000 are forecast for Adelaide during the construction phase and a further 300 onsite solar farm jobs in the Barkly.

The farm will use 5B manufactured Maverick solar power technology which is already successfully in use the cyclone- prone Top End town of Borroloola.

The proposal is for the East Arm facility to assemble the Maverick solar array system for a range of industrial and utility scale solar farms in not just the Northern Territory as first expected, but also pilot projects in Queensland and Western Australia.

A Maverick is a prefabricated array of solar panels that can be transported to a remote site and rapidly deployed with minimal construction effort on site. The Sun Cable project will see renewable energy generated by an approximately 14GW Solar Farm with approximately 30.0GW battery capacity being developed in the vicinity of Elliott. The solar farm and associated battery will be larger than any similar infrastructure that exists, or is under construction, in the world today.

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To achieve the required energy density, a broad acre solar array system is required that can be prefabricated and deployed to site to reduce the construction effort and deployment time in remote locations of the Territory.

The key components of the proposed development are:

• a single storey building with ancillary offices to pre-assemble solar arrays and perform administrative functions;

• a one (1)-way heavy vehicle driveway with separate access and egress that extends through the site and associated loading areas;

• light vehicle parking;

• a laydown area for incoming materials;

• a laydown area for outgoing product i.e. the solar arrays; and

• a two (2)-way light vehicle driveway to provide access to customer and staff carparking.