CEFC puts USD 72m into new Australian Bioenergy Fund

Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corp (CEFC) has committed AUD 100 million (USD 72m/EUR 68m) to the newly created Australian Bioenergy Fund, to be managed by the Foresight Group.

The fund aims to attract private sector equity investors to join the CEFC and support projects that will produce energy from agricultural, council, forestry and mining waste streams. The goal is to raise over AUD 200 million in equity, including CEFC's contribution.

“We see this new fund as playing an important role in accelerating and widening the market uptake of bioenergy and energy from waste technologies that have a proven track record overseas but are not yet widely deployed in Australia’s energy mix,” said CEFC CEO Oliver Yates.

CEFC, which was established by the Australian government to support green energy projects, calculates that Australia sources just 0.9% of its power from bioenergy, while the country has the potential to double that output in five years. “Our own investment pipeline has identified about AUD 3 billion of bioenergy sector projects that could be developed,” Yates added.

The Australian Bioenergy Fund will invest in technologies such as waste-to-energy, anaerobic digestion, sustainably sourced biomass-to-energy projects, landfill gas capture, wood pelletisation and the production of biofuels.

Foresight, which is currently establishing a presence in the Australian market, already manages funds on behalf of the UK Green Investment Bank and the European Investment Bank.

(AUD 1 = USD 0.723/EUR 0.681)

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