The Abbott government wants to axe ARENA and while Clive Palmer's Palmer United Party, which holds the balance of power in the new Senate, has said that it would support the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Climate Change Authority and the Renewable Energy Target, there has been no mention of its position on ARENA.
The repeal bill was tabled on June 19 and the Senate has referred the legislation to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report.
The Committee is accepting submissions to the inquiry till July 16 and is due to report to the Senate on September 4.
In the meantime, ARENA has continued to hand out funding, this week announcing an $11 million grant to support Carnegie Wave Energy's energy production and desalination technology, CETO.
ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said that the funding would help Carnegie progress towards commercialisation of its CETO technology, which has the potential to advance wave energy in Australia and internationally.
"The $46 million CETO 6 project represents the next generation of Carnegie’s landmark wave technology and is expected to deliver energy at approximately half the cost of CETO 5,” Frischknecht said.
“CETO 6 also allows for offshore power generation, which could enable additional applications for the technology operating further from shore, in deep water.”
The CETO units are large, fully submerged buoys, tethered to the ocean floor and designed to harness energy from the ocean’s waves. As the CETO 6 is larger than the CETO 5, ARENA said the units would lower energy costs.
“A single CETO 6 unit will be capable of generating up to 1MW – approximately four times the capacity of the CETO 5 units. This increased generation capacity, combined with improved efficiency, delivers reduced power costs and brings the technology closer to commercialisation," Frischknecht said.
“As the technology approaches commercialisation, each generation requires a lower fraction of the overall project cost to be provided by government," he added.
The project will deploy three CETO 6 units off the coast of WA's Garden Island and generate up to 3MW grid-connected power for the HMAS Stirling Navy base, as part of Carnegie’s existing power supply agreement.
Carnegie has raised approximately $70 million over 10 years to fund the development of the CETO technology.
In addition to Australian Government funding received through ARENA’s Emerging Renewables Program, Carnegie has a five-year, $20 million loan facility from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
