Mixed Greens: CEFC focuses on efficiency drive

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s first publicly revealed investment is a $50 million contribution to a $100 million loan program with the Commonwealth Bank to finance energy efficiency programs to help manufacturers and medium sized businesses reduce their energy bills. The choice of investment should not be politically controversial (although it will be), given that it is a really just  significant scaling up of the sorts of investments that were made by (bipartisan supported) Low Carbon Australia before it was absorbed into the CEFC.

The program will hand out loans of up to $5 million to facilitate investments into energy saving lighting, solar panels, and cogeneration and trigeneration plants. The Coalition is opposed to the CEFC, saying it will be disbanced and no further funds would be granted if it formed government. However, to do this, the Coalition would need to pass legislation through parliament, which would be unlikely before July 1, 2014.

Meridian sells half stake in Macarthur

Meanwhile, another investment target of the CEFC, the refinancing of the Macarthur wind farm, has taken an interesting turn after  New Zealand’s Meridian Energy confirmed it had sold its half share in the 420MW plant in Victoria to a Malaysian power generator for $650 million. Meridian invested $500 million into the wind farm, which was formally opened in March and is jointly owned by AGL Energy. Meridian said the sale, and the CEFC’s involvement in the syndicate refinancing the debt (it contributed $50 million to the facility) would help it make more renewable investments in Australia.

Meridian said it was looking at a “range” of opportunities, and at rolling out its PowerShop retail offer. “The involvement of the CEFC in the refinancing of the Macarthur wind farm will facilitate Meridian’s ongoing activities in Australia and Meridian looks forward to the opportunity for further collaboration,” it said. The buyer of the Macarthur stake is Malakoff Corporation, a subsidiary of MMC Corporation.

CEFC CEO Oliver Yates said the CEFC was providing finance on the same terms as the other syndicate members, ANZ, NAB, ING, Shinsei, ICBC and EKF, to provide market stability. It said this showed how the CEFC

“This will allow the market to build understanding of our approach and ability to participate in order to assist projects to successfully reach financial closure,” he said in a statement.

Vestas lands turbine deal

In another wind deal, Vestas has secured a contract to supply 51 turbines to the Taralga wind farm in NSW, which is being developed by CBD Energy and  Banco Santander. Vestas will provide a range of 1.8MW, 2MW and 3MW turbines for the 106MW project. Vestas landed the deal after a joint venture between CBD Energy and two large Chinese turbine manufacturers was disbanded. The number of turbines has been reduced from 61 under the original plan. Construction of Taralga is slated to take 17 months and the facility is slated for full operations by November 2014.

Cleantech comp narrows field

The Australian Cleantech Competition has chosen 30 semi-finalists from a field of 150, with two thirds of them coming from renewable energy and energy efficiency categories and just over half of them from NSW or Victoria. The semi-finalists qualify for Cleantech Business Accelerator Program, which will involve principal sponsor Autodesk helping each company design, visualise and simulate their ideas with Digital Prototyping software.

The shortlist includes  Bombora Wave Power,  DiUS Computing, which has developed a world-leading home charging solution for plug-in electric vehicles, F Cubed,  Nexus eWater, which produces high-efficiency hot water using heat recycled from grey water, Specialty Coatings, which applies a thin film PV material onto rooft sheeting, and  Utilitas – a specialist biogas project development company that uses a smart business model to produce competitively priced ‘Organic Energy’.