Australian Government Announces $100 Million Large-Scale Solar PV Short-List
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has revealed the 22 projects which will progress to the next step in its $100 million large-scale solar PV competitive round.
A strong expression of interest (EOI) phase attracted strong interest, according to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s (ARENA) CEO, Ivor Frischknecht, who announced the 22 projects which have been invited to proceed to the next state of the Agency’s $100 million large-scale solar PV competitive round.
“ARENA received 77 eligible EOIs and has selected 22 high merit projects to proceed to the full application stage with submissions due by 15 June 2016,” Mr Frischknecht said. Going on:
The projects are located in all mainland states and have a total capacity of 766 MW. Each project was able to demonstrate its cost of energy was below the threshold of $135 per MWh, with some projecting costs significantly below this threshold level.
The $100 million competitive round was announced back in early September, 2015, and according to ARENA intends “to bring down costs through the deployment of 200 MW of large-scale solar PV.
“More than three times the amount of funding available through the ARENA competitive round has been requested for the 22 projects, with an ask of approximately $332 million for projects totalling $1.68 billion,” Mr Frischknecht continued. “The strong interest and high-quality applications demonstrate Australia is serious about deploying large-scale solar and capitalising on its abundant solar resources.”
“It is clear that large-scale solar has the potential to become one of the most competitive forms of energy in the world,” Mr Frischknecht said. “It is also clear that, despite our significant solar advantages, Australia has some work to do to catch up to countries with more mature large-scale solar industries – our grid-connected large-scale solar capacity will shortly reach 240 MW and is generated by a only a handful of solar plants.
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Latest CleanTechnica.TV Video
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
