The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced it has opened a third round of its Industrial Transformation Stream (ITS) program, revealing that it has $180 million in funding available, to support emissions reduction at regional industrial facilities across Australia.
Under ARENA’s third round of the $400 million ITS Program, it is seeking projects from regional industrial businesses that it believes will transform their operations to support Australia’s net zero goals.
Darren Miller, CEO of ARENA said the ITS Program is aimed at businesses that are significant energy users in regional Australia that are looking for cleaner, more energy-efficient ways to operate.
“We know many businesses want to reduce emissions but aren’t sure where to start. This funding is designed to help them take that step,” said Miller.
“Whether you’re electrifying cold storage at a meat processing facility, implementing thermal energy storage technologies, or recovering biogas from dairy waste—if you are tackling emissions and energy use in an innovative and scalable way, we want to hear from you,” he said.
ARENA said the focus areas in this funding round are designed to support both innovation and practical deployment, with the first focus area being innovative technologies that haven’t been tried before but could deliver major impact.
The Agency said that this could include developing new methods to replace fossil fuels in high-temperature industrial processes, such as chemical manufacturing.
It added that its second Focus area would be to accelerate technologies that are already proven but not yet widely used due to cost or risk barriers.
It said that this could include supporting the uptake of electric heat pumps, which are already used in industries like food processing and paper manufacturing to deliver industrial-grade heat without emissions.
To qualify for funding under ITS, businesses must be located in a regional area, use a significant amount of energy and produce Scope 1 or Scope 2 emissions:
It explained that Scope 1 is direct emissions from on-site fuel combustion while Scope 2 involves indirect emissions from electricity purchased from the grid.
Businesses must qualify for reporting under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Scheme ad have a project that can be scaled or replicated across the industry, offering broader benefits beyond one business.
Interested businesses can visit the ITS funding webpage for program guidelines and further information on eligibility and submitting an application.
ARENA says the $400 million ITS is a 2023 budget measure under the $1.9 billion Powering the Regions Fund (PRF).
It added that the PRF forms part of Powering Australia, is supporting Australia’s ambition to become a renewable energy superpower and meet emission reduction targets of 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, and net zero emissions by 2050.
The first two rounds under ITS have been successful in establishing a portfolio of projects since launch in November 2023 and to date, approximately $220 million has been allocated to projects either announced or under assessment.
