Cannon-Brookes’ Sun Cable in manufacturing bid to solve cable shortage
Sun Cable, the $40 billion project that aims to deliver solar power from the Northern Territory to Singapore, is talking to a top European cable maker about manufacturing high voltage power cable for the project in Australia or the region to bypass a global shortage.
“We hope to announce something in the coming weeks, and coming months,” said Jeremy Kwong-Law, CEO of Grok Ventures, the venture capital arm of software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes which last month completed the acquisition of Sun Cable from administrators.
Grok Ventures CEO Jeremy Kwong-Law hopes to turn the cable shortage into an opportunity. Dion Georgopoulos
Sun Cable needs about 8000 kilometres of premium cable but is facing a five- to eight-year wait, so will instead look to back the construction of a new factory in the Asia-Pacific region, Mr Kwong-Law told The Australian Financial Review Climate & Energy Summit.
“Australia is clearly our preferred sport for it to be,” he said. “[The shortage is] actually an opportunity as much as it is an issue. Because of that much demand we can underwrite and be a cornerstone off taker for an HVDC [high voltage direct current] cable factory in this part of the world.”
Mr Kwong-Law said Sun Cable was talking to a couple of states about a suitable site for the plant and had partnered with a “tier one” European manufacturer with vast experience of laying fibre optic cables and HVDC submarine cables.
Martijn Wilder, chairman of the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, told the Summit on Monday that making cables for Sun Cable was one of a range of manufacturing initiatives the new federal green bank could consider, subject to an investment mandate which requires a commercial return on any investments.
Mr Kwong-Law was participating in a discussion about how investors are reshaping the energy landscape. The government has raised hopes that Australia’s $3.5 trillion superannuation system will back more energy transition projects, amid calls for the funds to participate in so-called nation building initiatives.
Adela Smith, a partner at law firm Gilbert + Tobin, told the Summit that continued policy certainty and more transparency from government on how it sees the transition unfolding was needed to give such institutional investors more confidence.
“Everyone’s realising that if policy settings don’t change to allow a smoother approval process and ability to get these things off the ground, the transition is going to be slower than it otherwise would be.”
No debt, no equity
Westpac executive Anthony Miller, who runs the bank’s business and wealth units, said he expected the rapidly growing category of sustainable finance to disappear within about five years because all finance – debt and equity – would have to meet sustainability criteria.
“I would suggest that within a certain period of time in the future, a sustainable loan is not this specific product because a loan from any bank or a bond issued into any market will need to be predicated on the basis that you are achieving a whole host of things which contribute to the transition,” Mr Miller said.
“Rather than it be a sort of product that’s used today to drive [transition], in fact your business must be ... delivering on a transition plan, and that’ll be a condition precedent to any form of money, whether it’s debt or equity.”
Read more from the AFR Energy & Climate Summit
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- Industry hit by faltering energy transition The stuttering energy transition is forcing big industrial companies like Boral to temporarily shut down cement production to avoid peak electricity prices, putting at risk the nation’s build-out of housing and infrastructure stock.
- Show us nuclear costs, Chris Bowen tells Peter Dutton Energy Minister Chris Bowen has called on the Coalition to disclose cost estimates for replacing coal-fired power stations with nuclear power, claiming the opposition had been dishonest in suggesting it could be cheaper than renewables.
- Chanticleer | Fortescue keeps faith in its green hydrogen unicorn hunt Peter Coleman says buyers willing to sign up for 10-year green hydrogen contracts are like unicorns. But Fortescue’s Mark Hutchinson insists they are out there.
- Business lacking ‘the will’ to urgently cut emissions: Fortescue Fortescue Energy CEO Mark Hutchinson wants companies to bring forward their net zero targets. Those with 2040 or 2050 horizons are not acting urgently enough.
- Chanticleer | The startling reason Boral is stopping production almost every day Vik Bansal, chief executive of the building products giant, has provided a reality check on how the energy transition is actually rolling out for the Australian industry.
- How 3.5m households could be the ‘unsung heroes’ on road to net zero Energy produced by solar panels on 3.5 million Australian households is equivalent to four Snowy Hydros, but not enough is being done to capitalise on it.
- Santos CEO says the world will never give up fossil fuels The chief executive of the $24 billion oil and gas group Santos says the world will always need fossil fuels in some form, and there will be a large role for gas beyond 2050.
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