Sun Cable announces financial advisors for the globe’s largest solar & storage project

Targeting financial close by the start of 2024, the Sun Cable team have announced the appointment of Macquarie Capital, Moelis & Company and MA Financial Group to advise, structure, arrange and execute the capital raising strategy for the construction of the megaproject.

The Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPowerLink) is seeking to export solar power from the Australian outback to Singapore via a submarine transmission link. The energy is to be generated from a giant solar PV and battery energy storage complex on a 12,000-hectare site in the Northern Territory’s Barkly region. The project includes a 17-20 GW solar farm and between 36 GWh and 42 GWh of energy storage.

The project has already had financial support from Australian billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest, and now as the project moves from vision to reality, its developers are rolling in the institutional guns.

Construction on the project is expected to commence in 2024, with electricity supplied to Darwin in 2027, and full operations by 2029.

“We have extended our growing business partnerships to Macquarie and Moelis, as we believe they are best placed to advise, optimise the structure and assist Sun Cable to access the global equity and debt capital markets in order to raise the necessary capital to fund construction of the Australia-Asia PowerLink,” Sun Cable Group’s Chief Financial Officer, Kiran Raj, said.

The project has had a series of promising progressions over the last few months, with the Australian government’s independent infrastructure advisory body, Infrastructure Australia, giving the project’s economic credentials the tick of approval in June. In May, the Territory government passed legislation to streamline existing processes and increase certainty for Sun Cable developers.

 “The Australia-Asia PowerLink is a long term investment in energy resilience and decarbonisation, at scale,” Sun Cable Founder & CEO David Griffin said. “With generation, transmission, and storage technology, and engineering that is proven across each interconnected aspect of the operation, we have the economies of scale needed to deliver zero emission dispatchable electricity with reliability and price stability.”