Australian Solar Council slams plan to merge ARENA and CEFC

Share

With their complimentary programs to support large scale solar and work on a range of off and edge-of-grid projects, ARENA and the CEFC have been supporting a breadth of solar PV projects in Australia. The Guardian Australia reported today that the Turnbull Coalition government is currently considering a plan to merge the two bodies.

The Guardian correctly notes that the merger would "bring some certainty to the organizations after the [previous] Abbott government sought to abolish them," however the ASC has criticized the reported move.

"This looks like a backdoor way to gut our most important renewable energy agencies," said ASC CEO John Grimes today. Grimes notes that ARENA and the CEFC fund different activities, with ARENA assisting early-stage technologies or applications to commercial viability, while the CEFC provides debt financing for technology deployment.

"Research and development, early-stage commercialization and innovation are not suited to loans," said Grimes. "It needs upfront capital funding." The outspoken solar lobby group head added that the CEFC has been "hamstrung by ongoing attempts to axe the agency and then to change its investment portfolio."

The Coalition government has unsuccessfully attempted to pass legislation abolishing the CEFC. The Australian Senate has twice rejected the bill. The Abbott government announced that it would scrap ARENA, but in a compromise struck with Senators, the renewable-energy agency was retained, however with reduced or deferred funding.

The government has also not replaced ARENA board members as their terms expired. It is now government by the secretary of the Department of the Environment.

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Popular content

Switzerland authorizes removable PV plant on railway track

04 October 2024 Swiss startup Sun-ways is planning to build a 18 kW pilot PV system between the racks of a 100-m linear section of a railway line in the Swiss canton...

Share

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.