On behalf of the Australian government, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced the upcoming launch of the $43 million Industrial Energy Transformation Studies Program. It has been announced as part of the Federal Budget and aims at identifying opportunities to reduce energy costs and emissions in the industrial sector.
The first round of the programme will see up to $25 million of grant funding being made available to support feasibility and engineering studies to establish the business case for replicable projects that demonstrate energy efficiency and decarbonisation technology solutions for industry.
Funding will be made available to companies and organisations in the agriculture, mining, manufacturing, gas supply, water supply, waste services and data centre sectors.
The programme will look to fund studies into industrial solutions that deliver transformational improvement in energy efficiency or greenhouse gas emissions and also share knowledge that can lead to replication across similar industry settings. Under the programme, applicants can seek $100,000 to $500,000 for feasibility studies or $250,000 to $5 million for engineering studies. The applications for the initial round will open on July 6, 2021. The interested applicants should review the Industrial Energy Transformation Studies Program Round 1 Guidelines.
In September 2020, the Australian Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction first announced the funding programme, as part of the Australian government’s first Low Emissions Technology Statement. ARENA has since consulted with a number of industry associations to seek feedback on the key design elements for the programme.
ARENA has provided almost $100 million in funding to support energy and emissions reduction initiatives in the industrial sector, including the Australian Alliance for Energy Productivity Renewable Energy for Process Heat studies, ERM Power’s Advancing Renewables in the Manufacturing Sector study, ClimateWorks’ Industrial Energy Transformation Initiative, and an emission reduction study in the alumina sector by Alcoa.
