Investment priorities

ARENA supports the companies and institutions that are building Australia's future energy system.

ARENA's funding and investment plan lists its three investment priorities and addresses key areas that can help create a smooth transition to renewable energy.

Investment priorities -

• Priority 1. Integrating renewables into the electricity system
• Priority 2. Accelerating hydrogen
• Priority 3. Supporting industry to reduce emissions

Funding programs

ARENA carries out its mission via the following funding programs:

• Advancing Renewables Program (ARP) - Development, demonstration and pre-commercial deployment projects;^[8]
• Research and Development - Renewable energy technologies that will increase commercial deployment within Australia;^[8]
• Renewable Energy Venture Capital Fund (REVC) - REVC fosters skills and management capability. It encourages investment in innovative Australian renewable energy companies to strengthen their chance of success;^[8]
• Innovation Fund - Emerging Australian technologies & businesses that can accelerate Australia's transition to a renewable energy economy.;^[8]

Projects

ARENA has committed to 486 projects investing $1.46 billion. Some of the projects include:

• Battery storage: Australia's first grid scale batteries in South Australia and Victoria^[9][10][11]
• Bioenergy and Waste-to-energy: An assessment by the company Licella of the feasibility of constructing its first pre-commercial biofuel plant^[12] and James Cook University developing a macroalgae to biofuels project to provide a blueprint for the development and production of high energy algal fuels.^[13]
• Demand response: A three-year trial of ten pilot demand response projects to curb energy use during extreme peak demand periods, in partnership with AEMO and the NSW Government^[14]
• Distributed generation: Australia's first trials of virtual power plants (VPP)^[15][16][17]
• Electric vehicle: Australia's first fast charging networks for electric vehicles^[18]
• Hydrogen fuel: Australia's first renewable hydrogen facilities^[19]
• Photovoltaic power station: Australia's first large scale off grid renewable projects including microgrids, solar farms and hybrid projects to power mines and remote communities^{[20][21][22][23]}
• Pumped-storage hydroelectricity: Feasibility studies into pumped hydro projects across Australia including Snowy 2.0, Hydro Tasmania's Battery of the Nation initiatives and a proposed seawater pumped hydro plant at Cultana, South Australia^{[24][25][26][27]}
• Solar photovoltaics: Research which developed techniques for obtaining high photovoltaic performance from poor-quality silicon,^[28] and has helped fund utility-scale solar photovoltaic stations in Nyngan, New South Wales (which at 103 MW will be the largest solar power station in the southern hemisphere)^[29] and Broken Hill, New South Wales.^[30]
• Solar thermal: Integration of solar-thermal integration with coal-fired power generation at the Kogan Creek Solar Boost Project, a 44 MW concentrating solar power plant, projected to be the world's largest solar-coal plant.^[31][32] The agency is also contributing to a feasibility study into local solar thermal power generation in Port Augusta, South Australia^[33] and supported a study into the integration of solar thermal power with the National Electricity Market (NEM).^[34]
• Wave energy A 1 MW demonstration generator (by Oceanlinx) for installation off the coast of Port MacDonnell, South Australia.^[35][36][37] Another is underway in Perth, Western Australia,^[38] and in early 2014 it was announced that Lockheed Martin and Ocean Power Technologies would build the world's largest wave energy project (62.5-megawatt) off the southern coast of Australia at Portland, Victoria, partly funded by ARENA.^[39][40]
• Waste-to-energy plant The East Rockingham Waste to Energy and Kwinana Waste to Energy Plant are under construction with financial support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.^[41][42]