Clean Energy Future Fund

The Clean Energy Future Fund supports the implementation of innovative clean energy projects in Western Australia that offer high public value through the following outcomes:

significant, cost-effective reduction in emissions below projected (or baseline) emissions as a direct result of the clean energy project
design, deployment, testing or demonstration of innovative clean energy projects likely to deliver community benefits or lead to broad adoption and significant reductions in emissions.

As part of the Sectoral emissions reduction strategy, the State �� has invested an additional $18 million to 2030–31 ($11.2 million to 2026–27) to extend the Clean Energy Future Fund.

The Clean Energy Future Fund is administered by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation with support from Energy Policy WA.

Three grant applications rounds have been completed. Round 3 closed to applications on 24 June 2024. Further detail on the completed grant rounds is available below.

Key information	Value
Grant size range	$100,000 to $4 million (GST exclusive)
Total funds available	$21.7 million is available for grants over the next three funding rounds.
Maximum percentage of eligible project costs the grant can cover	25 per cent
Maximum time to spend funds	5 years
Funding mechanism	The grant is paid by milestone in arrears on evidence the milestone has been completed and paid for.
Fund opened for applications	21 March 2024
Grant application workshops/webinars	About the grant – 11am, 28 March 2024 The presentation slides and a are available for viewing. Completing the financial model – 10am, 4 April 2024 The and a are available for viewing. Question and Answer Session – 3pm 16 May 2024 (30 minutes)
Applications closed	8am AWST, Monday 24 June 2024
Applicants notified of outcome and successful projects announced	Estimated late 2024
Who could apply	At the time of entering into a Funding Agreement, the applicant must be an Australian entity incorporated under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) or the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (Cth) or a local government entity, government research organisation, university, or a consortium with an eligible entity as lead applicant. Further eligibility requirements are outlined in the applicant guidelines.
Merit criteria	The merit criteria target projects with high emissions reduction and other benefits, with strong potential for wider adoption, that are likely to succeed and that need funding support. More details are outlined in the applicant guidelines.

Ministerial priorities

The Minister for Energy; Environment; Climate Action identified the following priorities for Round 3:

clean energy projects led by First Nations people that put their communities at the centre of development, design, implementation, and benefit-sharing
innovative clean energy projects in regional and remote Western Australia (projects that are at the fringe of, or are not connected to, the South West Interconnected System or the North West Interconnected System)
clean energy projects that improve the security and resilience of networked electricity supply in line with the Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap
clean energy projects that support decarbonisation of existing industry and the development of new, low-emissions industries in Western Australia
projects that enhance energy efficiency and materially reduce emissions from the built environment or manufacturing
clean energy projects that support the replacement of diesel electricity generation with renewable energy
projects that can deliver long-duration energy storage by 2030.

Round two applications closed on 22 April 2021 and six projects were successful in winning grants totalling $9.3 million. The projects will test critical low-carbon technologies and support Western Australia to achieve our target of net zero emissions by 2050.

Together, the six projects are expected to:

invest about $170 million, much of it in Western Australia
create up to 255 jobs during construction, and 63 ongoing jobs
generate 81,000 MWh each year, enough to power 16,000 average WA homes
avoid about 132,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year or 2.4 million tonnes over their design lives.

If the pilot projects are successful and technologies prove commercially viable, the six projects could lead to lifetime emissions reduction of 71 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent just in Western Australia, with significant potential for wider adoption of the technologies developed.

The successful projects were:

Frontier Impact Group’s Narrogin Renewable Diesel Project as part of the FutureEnergy Australia joint venture with Carnarvon Energy Ltd – $2 million – to build a high-temperature pyrolysis plant to produce 18 million litres of renewable diesel per year, as well as biochar and wood vinegar.
Power Research and Development’s Pumped-up Walpole project – $2 million – to build 1.5 MW pumped hydroelectric storage in Walpole using two farm dams to store 30 MWh and increase grid reliability.
Advanced Energy Resources’ Moora Microgrid project – $1.8 million – to build a wind, solar and battery microgrid incorporating biogas and existing solar generation. This will serve a piggery, citrus farm and potentially other farms in Moora.
Alcoa’s Electric Calcination project – $1.7 million – to pilot replacing gas with electricity for calcination of alumina to decarbonise the refining process, giving Western Australia a commercial advantage to grow a green aluminium industry with our abundant renewable resources.
Metro Power Company’s Ambrisolar Battery Energy Storage System project – $340,000 – to add solar generation and a DC-coupled battery to an existing solar farm in Merredin.
Alinta Energy’s Port Hedland Big Battery project – $1.5 million – to add battery storage to a gas-fired power station to replace spinning reserve, which burns gas, with energy stored in the battery to provide instant support to the grid when needed.

Strike Energy’s Mid West Geothermal Project – to drill a pilot well to demonstrate geothermal energy near Dongara to enable a future 180 MW project – was withdrawn by the applicant before commencement.

Round one applications closed on 13 July 2020, and two applicants were successful for grants totalling $2.6 million. Together the projects will create more than 365 construction jobs and 22 ongoing jobs.

Each year, the projects will generate 80,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity – enough to power 16,000 houses and save 130,000 tonnes of carbon emissions, which is equal to taking 42,000 cars off the road.

The successful projects were:

Nomadic Energy – $1 million – to install 5 megawatts (MW) of modular, re-deployable solar panels at Northern Star’s Carosue Dam gold mine. The flexibility to redeploy the solar panels removes a key barrier to using green energy at mine sites, where a mine may cease operating before the cost of the solar panels has been recovered. The installation is complete and generating more energy than modelled.
ResourcesWA – $1.6 million – to install 30 MW of solar power at the Homestead mine site in the Goldfields, supplying power to the Paddington Mill and Mungari Mill sites and batteries at each of the mills (10 MW and 5 MW respectively, each with one hour’s storage). This will reduce the impact of outages and support Western Power’s local substation. This project is in progress.

The following questions and answers were prepared for Grant Round 3 which closed on 24 June 2024. If you have questions about the grant program, you can direct them to ceff@dwer.wa.gov.au.

1. Can I submit more than one application?	Yes, more than one application may be submitted.
2. How do I complete the financial model if I am applying for funding for a pilot project, with a commercial-scale project to follow?	The expenditure, funding sources and modules for the pilot must be clearly separated from those for the future project. The easiest way to achieve this is to complete a financial model for the pilot and another separate model for the future commercial project showing the potential benefits. The financial model template may be modified if necessary. Please indicate the changes made to the template if you have done so.
3. Can we apply for funding for front-end engineering design?	Yes. Section 5 of the applicant guidelines includes essential non-equipment expenditure including design, professional services as eligible expenditure.
4. Are projects that produce energy in the form of fuel (hydrogen, ammonia, biogas, etc.) eligible?	Yes. Applications should provide evidence for the greenhouse gas intensity of the planned product(s). For applications relating to renewable hydrogen, applicants may also wish to contact the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation’s Renewable Hydrogen Unit.
5. Are projects to replace other fossil fuels with natural gas eligible?	Projects proposing replacement of diesel or coal with gas are likely to have a lower merit score and be less aligned with Ministerial priorities than those replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.
6. Are all Ministerial priorities equally weighted? My project does not meet the Ministerial priorities. Can I still apply?	There is no weighting attached to the Ministerial priorities. Ministerial priorities provide guidance to applicants on areas for which project proposals would be welcomed. Applications are not required to meet Ministerial priorities to be eligible for consideration.
7. Which projects are excluded by the stationary energy requirement?	The definition of a clean energy project is a project that deploys or applies a technology that reduces greenhouse gas emissions from the production or use of stationary energy. Stationary energy excludes the use of energy for the purpose of transportation. Energy use for transport purposes is defined as any of the following: a) transport by vehicles registered for road use b) rail transport c) water-borne transport d) air transport. This aligns with Subsection 2.41(2) of the .
8. Is there a map or definition of which areas are considered fringe of grid?	There is not a strict definition. Generally, the fringe of the grid is at or close to the edge of the distribution network, where there is a low density of customers (which can sometimes be well within the South West Interconnected System) or where location is causing reliability, quality, electrical loss, or cost issues. The grid refers to the state’s two largest electricity networks, the South West Interconnected System and North West Interconnected System.
9. What are the roles and requirements of the lead applicant and any other consortium members? Are there any mandatory requirements of each?	The lead applicant is generally the entity that will own the assets while they are developed under the proposal, and that will sign the funding agreement and be responsible for meeting the recipient obligations. Other consortium members may provide capital, resources, expertise or other assistance.
11. Where a project significantly increases the load on a grid and it can be demonstrated that the resulting incremental grid capacity growth is predominantly by renewable energy, can the incremental carbon intensity of the grid growth be used in the funding application?	Projects should use the emissions intensity for the power they plan to purchase. For grid-sourced power where there is no direct relationship with a power producer, the published emissions intensity for that grid can be used. Where your additional demand is large enough that new generation capacity will need to be created, it is expected that your application would indicate plans to source this generation capacity. You should use the modelled emissions intensity of that new generation regardless of whether that power is to be supplied via the grid.
12. Are control or grid management systems for electric vehicle charging excluded as transport?	A clean energy project is defined as one that deploys or applies a technology that reduces greenhouse gas emissions from the production or use of stationary energy. This excludes the use of energy for the purpose of transportation. Transport-related technologies (such as charging control or grid management systems) that provide decarbonisation benefits to the electricity grid may apply based on those benefits.
13. Will grant expenditure require external audits?	Yes. The standard funding agreement requires the annual report (which contains a financial report) to be audited by a professionally accredited external auditor.
14. How soon will I receive my milestone grant payment after I have submitted my milestone completion report?	The department will pay invoices within 30 days of receiving satisfactory evidence of milestone completion and expenditure.
15. I am planning to submit a project for a group of councils under a regional council. Do you require organisation capacity evidence and insurances for our regional council and the local governments we are submitting the application for?	Organisational capacity should be evidenced for whichever organisation(s) will perform the project tasks. Where these organisations are not the applicant, evidence of their commitment to participate should be provided. Evidence of insurances should be from the party that carries the relevant risk.
15. Can you start the project once you have submitted the application (design, site works)?	Committing significant funds to a project before the funding outcome is known would be likely to undermine the justification for government funding. In addition, any costs committed before signing the funding agreement for the project may not be eligible.
17. My project involves working with a Western Australian �� Trading Enterprise, which will provide in-kind support, such as access to facilities, equipment and expertise. Does this count as State �� funding in assessing the 25 per cent maximum funding rule?	No. The 25 per cent rule is designed to limit the State ��’s financial exposure to a specific project, so other funders must also assess it as fundable before it can proceed. Where the in-kind contribution is specific to and necessary for the project and not simply a substitute for funding, it is treated as separate to this financial exposure.
18. Are Western Australian �� Trading Enterprises (GTEs) eligible?	Western Australian GTEs are not eligible to apply as a lead applicant. GTEs can partner with an eligible lead applicant.
19. Where can I get emissions factors for the products my application uses?	Future projections are available here: Current values are available here: .
20. The eligibility criteria say that a project can’t have started, but this is also mentioned in the merit criteria.	Projects that are clearly already in-progress and committed are not eligible. Where the status is less clear, it will be assessed under the Need for the Grant merit criterion which allows assessment on a scale of likelihood. We assess whether the project is likely to proceed without the grant.
21. Is a corporation that is a corporate trustee eligible?	No. Trusts are not eligible in this round and a corporate trustee effectively acts for the trust.
22. Is an offshore wind farm in Commonwealth waters eligible?	If the onshore components and the site where the power comes ashore are in WA, the requirement to be in WA is deemed to be met.

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