“There is very strong pressure to invest in the grid to help unlock all the renewables needed, as outlined in the [Australian Energy Market Operator’s] integrated systems plan,” said Mr. Learmonth The Australian Financial Review ahead of Thursday’s release of CEFC’s annual investment report.
“There’s the grid, there’s supply chain issues, inflation and interest rates, which makes the very important construction of renewables even more difficult, which is why we are in some way sort of, in some cases, backtracking or leaning into the renewables market again to try to help drive it forward.
He said that in addition to key transmission projects such as VNI West, HumeLink and Marinus Link which would be the focus of Rewiring the Nation, “we would also see the renewable energy areas around the countryside as also in the crosshairs of what the CEFC would be working on”.
In 2021-22, CEFC committed $1.45 billion to 29 projects, a slight increase from the previous year, leveraging $2.30 of external investment for every dollar to realize $4.79 billion of transactions.
As of June 30, it had drawn a net $5.43 billion from its initial $10 billion funding allocation from the federal government. This included $6.46 billion drawn in total and $1.03 billion in capital repaid or returned to CEFC to be recycled into new ventures.
The last financial year included $455 million in network infrastructure investment, including the latest financing for the EnergyConnect project, the new $2 billion power cable to be built between South Australia and NSW, and a renewable energy zone in Queensland.
Some $41 million was spent on three deals in renewable energy and large-scale storage, nearly $165 million in green bond deals and $17.5 million in emissions reductions in resources, including a hydrogen hub and heavy hydrogen trucks.
CEFC’s Clean Energy Innovation Fund invested a record $45.4 million in projects that included a sharkskin-inspired film coating to reduce transportation emissions.
Mr. Learmonth said that given the challenges of private sector bank financing for large-scale storage, this would be a priority area for CEFC, not only in the field of grid-scale batteries, but also probably pumped hydroelectric storage, which can provide all-important longer-term storage to support a grid increasingly dependent on renewables.
“It’s a tough industry, but we have the kind of capital that can help move projects forward,” he said.
The head of the $35 billion Sun Cable company, David Griffin, has meanwhile named CEFC as a potential backer of the project which involves a huge solar and battery farm and a 4,500 kilometer undersea cable. from Darwin to Singapore.
Mr. Learmonth said that despite the vast changes that have taken place over the past 10 years in the energy market, the need for CEFC to help with the transition to clean energy is greater than ever, making it “a very exciting decade ahead” for the organization.
