Corridor

The corridor is a family of options, not a defined line. The map below overlays the layers that constrain any route — solar resource, transmission, native title, water, existing infrastructure. Selection between routes and nodes depends on inputs the site does not yet have: Traditional Owner engagement outcomes, anchor customer preferences, and site-specific work.

The Map

Five candidate alignments across Australia. Central desert and Inland West run from Kalgoorlie through Alice Springs and Tennant Creek to Mount Isa; the Northern arc runs Newman to Karratha across to Tennant Creek and on to Townsville; the Southern arc runs along the Nullarbor through Port Augusta and Broken Hill to Longreach; Adelaide–Darwin runs north-south along the Stuart Highway. Existing transmission is dense on both coasts and thin between them. — Five candidate alignments and their anchor nodes, against existing transmission. Schematic centrelines between named nodes — not surveyed routes. Open the full map to toggle them one at a time.

Open the Full Map

The map overlays: solar resource, existing transmission, substations, power stations, data centres (PeeringDB extract), roads, native title determinations and applications, ABARES Indigenous Estate, water frequency, submarine cable landings.

The corridor’s case is visible as the negative space: the empty inland belt where solar resource is highest, existing load is lowest, transmission is thinnest, and no data centres sit. That is what the corridor would fill.

This map covers the corridor option space. OpenGridWorks maps the same infrastructure classes worldwide — power plants, transmission, substations, data centres and submarine cables — from OpenStreetMap, ENTSO-E, Global Energy Monitor and other public sources. Coverage is strongest in the United States.

View the Global Map

Corridor Options

Five candidate alignments are worth serious analysis. Each shadows different existing infrastructure and creates different trade-offs.

These five alignments span different anchor logics rather than being variants of one shape. Southern arc and Adelaide–Darwin share Port Augusta as an anchor node — the site of an existing coal-to-solar institutional transition.

Option	Route	Length	Existing Corridor Shadowed	Trade-Offs
Central desert	Kalgoorlie → Warburton → Yulara → Alice Springs → Tennant Creek → Mt Isa → Longreach	~3,400 km	Great Central Rd, Stuart Hwy, Barkly Hwy, Mt Isa rail	Highest coverage of high-GHI belt; longest; most jurisdictions crossed
Inland West	Kalgoorlie → Leonora → Warburton → Alice Springs → Tennant Creek → Mt Isa	~2,600 km	Goldfields Hwy, Great Central Rd, Stuart Hwy, Barkly Hwy	Shorter; fewer nodes; skips QLD central west
Northern arc	Newman → Karratha → Tennant Creek → Mt Isa → Townsville	~2,900 km	Great Northern Hwy, Barkly Hwy, CopperString route	Fastest CopperString connection; anchored to Pilbara mineral processing; skips WA Goldfields
Southern arc	Kalgoorlie → Norseman → Nullarbor → Ceduna → Port Augusta → Broken Hill → Cobar → Bourke → Charleville → Longreach	~3,800 km	Eyre Hwy, Trans-Australian Railway, Barrier Hwy, Kidman Way, Mitchell Hwy, Landsborough Hwy	Only alignment touching three grids — SWIS at Kalgoorlie, the SA NEM at Port Augusta, the NSW NEM at Broken Hill; longest
Adelaide–Darwin	Adelaide → Port Augusta → Coober Pedy → Alice Springs → Tennant Creek → Katherine → Darwin	~3,000 km	Stuart Hwy end to end, Adelaide–Darwin railway	North-south rather than west-east; Darwin as an Asian-market port; DKIS integration; does not serve the eastern seaboard

None of these is presented as the corridor. Each is a coherent option under different anchor assumptions.

Corridor Route Trade-Offs

Any alignment balances five trade-offs.

Criterion	What It Favours	Implication
Solar resource	Inland WA–NT–NW QLD belt above 2,200 kWh/m²	Desert and tableland routes, not coastal
Terrain	Lower-relief plains and tablelands	Avoids ranges; supports linear infrastructure
Flood exposure	Northern arc over Boulia/Channel Country	Southern alignments must handle Georgina/Diamantina floodplains
Existing roads and rail	Established freight corridors	Construction access and operating logistics
Land tenure and Country	Determined native title and pastoral lease	Requires consent before any alignment claim
Anchor logic	West-east (grid-linked, mineral processing, central belt) versus north-south (Asian market, DKIS integration)	Determines which markets and which grids the corridor can reach at all, before any question of route efficiency

Anchor Nodes Across the Option Space

Regardless of route, six potential anchor nodes emerge. Each plays a different functional role.

Kalgoorlie / Leonora (WA) — industrial logic, mining services workforce, SWIS interconnection at Kalgoorlie
Newman / Karratha (WA) — northern arc anchor; Pilbara mineral processing tie-in
Alice Springs (NT) — central services and workforce base
Tennant Creek (NT) — strongest solar resource; requires most infrastructure development
Mount Isa (QLD) — heavy industry, CopperString grid connection, established workforce
Longreach (QLD) — regional services, eastern logistics interface

The Southern arc and Adelaide–Darwin alignments introduce further nodes:

Southern arc — Norseman, Nullarbor Roadhouse, Ceduna, Port Augusta, Broken Hill, Cobar, Bourke, Cunnamulla, Charleville
Adelaide–Darwin — Adelaide, Port Augusta, Coober Pedy, Marla, Kulgera, Elliott, Daly Waters, Mataranka, Katherine, Adelaide River, Darwin

What This Page Is and Is Not

This is:

A structured presentation of the option space
A first-pass layer map to think against
A framework for principles-based selection

This is not:

A surveyed route
A claim on any land
A consent record from Traditional Owners (see Country)
Cleared under EPBC or state environmental frameworks