ARENA says funding per watt falls in Australian solar competition

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) said Wednesday it has received 20 eligible applications, totalling 757 MW, in the final stage of its AUD-100-million (USD 74.6m/EUR 66.3m) competitive round for funding large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects.

About AUD 211 million in ARENA funding has been requested for the 20 projects, which represent a total investment of AUD 1.6 billion. The need for ARENA support has plummeted to an average of just AUD 0.28 per watt in the full application stage, the agency calculates.

To compare, the first utility-scale PV plants in the country -- Moree, Nyngan and Broken Hill -- sought around AUD 1.6 in ARENA funding per watt. In November 2015, that request fell significantly to AUD 0.43/W during the expressions of interest (EoI) stage of the competitive round and have now declined even further.

The agency launched the competitive process in September as part of a joint financing programme with the Clean Energy Finance Corp (CEFC). Detailed due diligence and merit assessment analysis of the 20 applications are already underway, with the winners due to announced in September this year.

(AUD 1.0 = USD 0.746/EUR 0.663)

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