PowerSwitch

There is a proposal to build huge solar farms in Australia and to export the power produced to Singapore via submarine high voltage DC cables.
Sounds a good idea to me, considering the amount of sunlight in Australia, and the cheap land, much of which is of poor quality and unsuited to agriculture.
https://suncable.sg/

Note that the above link is an advertising or promotional website and NOT an independent view.

I recall a previous similar proposal to export solar power from Africa to Europe, That scheme was in my view entirely doable from the technical point of view, but unlikely to succeed due to "human factors"
Australia is reasonably stable by contrast to Africa, and I suspect that this will actually happen.
One would hope that sufficient PV capacity will be installed to meet the domestic Australian demand as well as the exports. They will look a bit silly if exporting solar energy whilst still burning coal to meet domestic demand.

I saw an article, in the Guardian i think, about how large scale solar farms in desert areas could change climate over large areas due to the difference in temperatures and humidity caused by the difference in absorption and radiation between solar panels and desert sand. It's all a matter of degree I suppose but is something which must be investigated.

I also wonder what the Aborigines may say about this as I suppose the panels will be built on their ancestral lands. BDU might be able to inform us about this.

I would expect that a very large solar farm would slightly alter the local climate.
Mass produced PV modules have an efficiency of about 25%, and at a large solar farm, about 50% of the land area is covered by these modules. That implies that very roughly 12.5% of the solar radiation falling on the solar farm is removed from the locality.

That should result in reduced soil and air temperatures in the vicinity. Possibly beneficial in areas that tend to excessive heat.

The GLOBAL effect should be zero, since the energy removed from the solar farm in Australia will produce equivalent heat in Singapore. All common purposes for which electricity is used, ultimatly turn 100% of this electricity into heat.

Sheep grazing between and below the modules should be possible, and prevents vegetation from growing and shading the modules. Sheep will probably like the shade under the modules.

Australia's climate record labelled 'simply embarrassing' and among worst of G20 nations:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... 20-nations

How about Australia resolving Australia's issues first ?
After that, they could think about exporting to Singapore....

adam2 wrote: ↑12 Jun 2021, 14:38 I recall a previous similar proposal to export solar power from Africa to Europe, That scheme was in my view entirely doable from the technical point of view, but unlikely to succeed due to "human factors"
Australia is reasonably stable by contrast to Africa, and I suspect that this will actually happen.

Could the Sahara turn Africa into a solar superpower?
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/ ... le-energy/

It's already happening.....

The article that I saw, https://ideas.ted.com/solar-farm-sahara ... t-effects/, on changing the climate related to the Sahara and was based on the fact that the solar panels are much darker than sand or rock and vast areas of darker material would produce much more heat and would be reradiated, heating the air and thus affecting the climate in regions around the area.

kenneal - lagger wrote: ↑12 Jun 2021, 18:03 I also wonder what the Aborigines may say about this as I suppose the panels will be built on their ancestral lands. BDU might be able to inform us about this.

Not sure about what Aboriginals think. I think for the most part probably quiet despair and a sense of playing the long game and waiting for the whitefella to get bored and get back on the boats and leave. The proposed area for that solar project is very sparsely populated with only a town of possibly 500 people within 100 kilometres.

Recent destruction of 40,000 years of Aboriginal presence in two rock caves at Juukan Gorge by an iron ore company caused a bit of fuss though.

I think the damage caused by these solar panels will be minimal compared with farming etc.

On the face of it this project is a good idea. The issue for Australia is a storage solution not a generation solution for renewable energy. Increasingly there is debate here on what will happen "after coal" and I think that is a good thing. Things will happen quickly once they start.