The government of Western Australia will provide up to AU$60m in funding for various clean energy and decarbonisation projects as part of the federal government’s New Energies Industries Funding Stream.
The stream will be made available as part of the government’s Investment Attraction Fund. Projects that are set to benefit from the funding include those focused on critical minerals processing, renewable hydrogen, green iron and steel, and carbon capture, utilisation and storage.
The first round of the programme allocated $60m to five projects in 2024. Successful proposals included decarbonising steel manufacturing, converting critical minerals into high-value battery precursors, and carbon capture and storage ventures.
“The IAF has been able to support dozens of projects over the past three years and has provided $216.4m in funding, creating local jobs and helping diversify WA’s economy,” said Roger Cook, Premier of Western Australia.
gasworld has reported on several ongoing clean energy projects in Western Australia. This includes a commercial-scale green hydrogen and ammonia plant being developed by energy consultancy Xodus in the Mid-West region.
First announced in 2022, the project is split into two primary phases, initially focusing on domestic hydrogen supply to decarbonise the mining and heavy transport sectors.
A separate project in the same region recently selected Thyssenkrupp Nucera as its supplier of electrolysers to produce green hydrogen at the Mid-West Green Iron Project.
The project would produce seven million tonnes of green iron pellets a year and convert half to make 2.5 million tonnes of green hot briquetted iron. The plant, which will use green hydrogen, could help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 90%, compared with traditional steel production.
In June, energy firm Horizon Power completed a three-month trial of carbon capture, utilisation and storage technology for diesel generators in Perth. The tech managed to capture approximately 45% of CO2 emissions from the generator exhaust, while consuming less than 8% of the generator’s energy.
