$350 million in funding initiatives from the CEFC and ARENA will see as many as ten new large scale solar farms constructed across Australia.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) announced a $100 million programme this morning; offering grants of up to $30 million for solar projects with a minimum generation capacity of 5 MW (AC).
“Australia has huge natural advantages in this area: more sun than almost anywhere else and a solar R&D sector that is the envy of the world,” said ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht.
“The funding round is about unlocking that capability to deploy large-scale solar farms across the nation. This will drive further innovation in the sector and create efficiencies in Australia’s solar PV supply chains.”
Mr. Frischknecht said the initiative’s main aims were to reduce the cost of large-scale solar developments in Australia and for large-scale solar to achieve cost parity with wind energy by 2020.
Also earlier today, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) announced a complementary $250 million large-scale solar financing programme.
“When fully deployed, the CEFC finance will be the single largest debt financing commitment to the Australian large-scale solar sector,” said CEFC CEO Oliver Yates
” The CEFC’s provision of fixed-rate longer-dated senior debt finance is designed to directly support the network of financiers, project suppliers and developers in the delivery of additional large-scale solar in Australia.”
By working together, the CEFC and ARENA say they will minimise transaction and due diligence time and costs for project developers seeking funding and finance.
Applications for funding for large-scale solar projects from ARENA and finance from the CEFC open this month.
The CEFC, which invests for positive financial return, has committed more than $1.4 billion in finance to investments in clean energy projects valued at over $3.5 billion since the Corporation came into being. Most recently, the CEFC announced it had provided $4.7 million in finance for a 1.8MW solar project at Ayers Rock Resort.
ARENA has approximately $2.5 billion in funding and funds activities expected to propel renewable energy technologies towards commercial readiness, improve business models or reduce overall industry costs. Projects to have benefited from ARENA funding recently include the trial of a ‘virtual power plant’ model, the development of lithium-ion battery storage solutions and a solar + storage trial in Western Australia.
