Renewable money splash

13 April 2016

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has awarded a total of $17 million to nine renewable energy projects.

Announcing the industry-researcher collaboration funding, ARENA's chief executive officer Ivor Frischknecht said that each successful project was focussed on delivering commercially viable solutions, aimed at solving a current industry challenge.

ARENA's investment will leverage a total of $54 million in contributions from private and public sectors.

The Australian National University (ANU) attracted the greatest share of the available funding, $4.7 million for three projects.

This includes $2.9 million for a study led by Professor Sylvie Thiebaux, who will develop a system to estimate the power produced by all the rooftop solar PV in a given area.

Aerial view of the Alcoa refinery, on the shore at Kwinana image:ARENA

However, the by far largest single grant, worth $4.5 million, was awarded to a project from the University of Adelaide. Leveraging a total of $15 million in investment, the project will investigate whether energy produced from concentrating solar thermal technologies can be integrated into the Bayer alumina refining process for Alcoa's Australian refineries.

Other funded projects include:

Story is based on a media release by ARENA.