SunCable co-founder Fraser Thompson's latest net zero bet
After his SunCable renewable energy venture was tipped into administration and bought out amid an acrimonious billionaire fallout, co-founder Fraser Thompson is still thinking big with new startup Cyan Ventures.
Until June last year, Fraser Thompson was helping to build his dream project alongside his brother Mac and experienced energy executive David Griffin.
The three co-founded SunCable, the ambitious $30 billion renewable energy venture that aims to generate 2.65 GW of renewable energy in a sun-soaked part of the Northern Territory and transmit it via high-voltage transmission cable to the industrial precinct in Darwin and under the Timor sea to Singapore. Thompson was chief strategy officer in the venture.
Six months after the project was placed into voluntary administration following a protracted dispute between minority but high-profile shareholders Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures and Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy, the three realised the investors had conflicting visions for the project which could not be reconciled. Grok subsequently purchased the company out of administration and split it into two sub-projects: the onshore renewable energy and transmission component, and the offshore cable component.
While not at liberty to divulge full details behind the SunCable schism, Thompson tells Capital Brief that some involved in the project saw it mainly as an opportunity to provide electricity to Singapore — which has limited land resources to develop its own renewable energy — while others were interested in the potential for the renewable energy to power hydrogen electrolysers.
