The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has announced a $20 million funding round to drive more research and development into solar PV to help achieve even greater cost savings and ensure that it can provide more than 30 per cent of Australia’s electricity needs within 15 years.
The funding round will be open for applications from tomorrow (Wednesday, May 24) for one month, and follows the release earlier this month of ARENA’s new investment priorities – which include solar PV research, storage, and renewable energy exports.
ARENA has indicated it will no longer provide funding for large scale solar PV, given the success of its recent $100 million round that helped fund 490MW of projects and helped spark an investment book that has seen another 2000MW of large scale solar begin construction of near financial close.
But CEO Ivor Frischknecht says that despite the recent big falls in the cost of solar, further research was warranted to make the technology even more efficient and affordable.
“This dedicated research and development funding for solar PV is part of our commitment to finding and supporting further breakthroughs in solar PV,” he said in a statement.
