Australia taking bids for $182M in early cleantech projects

The Australian state of Victoria has issued a request for proposals for AUD$182 million (USD$119 million) in pre-commercial cleantech projects to be implemented through 2015.

The government has said it wants to help foster technologies with some technical risks that could eventually help the state reach its goal of a 60 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2050.

Since 2005, the Victorian government has committed $180 million and has attracted investment of over $1.6 billion from private and Australian government sources for such technologies. Its Energy Technology Innovation Strategy (ETIS) aims to drive down the cost of pre-commercial technologies to ensure that they are available for commercial deployment when needed to minimize the economic cost of a carbon price.

The majority of the funds—AUD$110 million—is planned support large-scale demonstration projects for carbon capture and storage technologies. The ETIS was expanded this year to include carbon capture and storage.

The remaining AUD$72 million is planned for large-scale demonstrations of energy technologies, such as solar, geothermal, biomass conversion, efficiency, wave and storage. The government says that the energy sector contributes 67 percent of the state's net greenhouse gas emissions, with the majority coming from brown coal generation.

The state has established a mandate for 10 percent of energy consumption from renewable sources by 2016. Australia plans to require that 20 percent of energy supply come from renewables by 2020.

The RFPs close Aug. 31, with grants to be announced by March 2010 and demonstrations to be completed by 2014 or 2015.

Additional information can be found here »