Australia boosts solar financing to scalable levels

As reported by the Clean Energy Finance Commission (CEFC) in Australia, its recently launched solar financing program has attracted a substantial amount of interest – enough to boost the country’s large-scale PV capacity 10-fold.

 

According to pv-tech, the program has received over 40 expressions of interest for loans under an AU$250 million (US$177.5 million) lending facility it launched earlier this year.

Funding program has attracted 2GW of large-scale PV proposals

“We have received very strong interest from project developers clearly looking to further develop Australia’s large-scale solar capacity,” CEFC chief executive Oliver Yates said.

“The total capacity of the proposed projects is more than 2,000MW. If all these projects proceeded to development, we would see a 10-fold increase in Australia’s large-scale solar capacity. There is clearly strong investor interest in the potential of Australia’s renewable energy sector.”

Project proposals range in size from 15 MW to 200 MW. Queensland has attracted the largest number of projects bids, totaling 980 MW, followed by New South Wales with 620 MW. The CEFC program will offer loans of AU$15 million and above, for projects over 10 MW.

Financing Australia’s development of large-scale solar

According to Yates, Australia currently has only four large-scale solar PV developments larger than 10 MW. “Through this financing program, we are looking to accelerate the development of large-scale solar as an important part of our renewable energy capacity,” he said. Last July,Greg Bourne, chairman of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (AREA) announced planning another round of funding for large-scale solar plants. Such endeavors will enhance financing capacity in this country’s bid to bridge the gap between the cost of large-scale solar plants in Australia and the US and elsewhere in the world.

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/11/19/australia-boosts-solar-financing-scalable-levels/