The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has unveiled its commitments from the six months to December 2024, revealing a record $3.5 million in new investments.
Together with co-investors, CEFC said its commitments in the six-month period are on track to deliver $13.3 billion in investment across the clean energy economy. The sustained pace of CEFC investment activity saw the completion of 28 transactions to December 2024, averaging just over one each week.
Investments included CEFC capital backing for the delivery of critical transmission via Humelink and the New South Wales element of the Victoria – New South Wales Interconnector, which is the largest single transaction since the CEFC began investing.
CEFC CEO, Ian Learmonth, said, “The scale of our most recent CEFC investment commitments demonstrates the role we can play in cutting Australia’s emissions.
“CEFC capital is working across major sectors of our economy, from renewable energy and transmission to households; from electric vehicles to climate tech and natural capital. Importantly, this activity is Australia-wide, a clear sign the transition to net zero emissions can benefit all Australians,” he said.
“As Australia’s ‘green bank’, we see it as particularly important to maximise the impact of our capital. That means attracting significant new investment from other market participants and putting that capital to work on our most pressing emissions challenges.
“The fact that each dollar of CEFC capital has attracted an additional $3.01 from other sources demonstrates the ability of the CEFC to crowd in private sector capital as we work towards our national climate goals. This co-investment takes the lifetime value of our investment commitments to $71.5 billion.”
The CEFC’s announcement follows Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, foreshadowing an additional capital allocation of $2 billion to the CEFC General portfolio, subject to parliamentary approval.
A previous additional capital allocation of $20.5 billion to the CEFC saw the creation of three new funds, focusing on energy transmission, household sustainability and climate tech respectively.
Mr Learmonth said the CEFC had capitalised on strong market interest to make considerable progress across the three funds in their first year of operation.
“Total commitments through the Rewiring the Nation Fund stand at $2.8 billion, across five transactions, which will help transform our energy grid for the 21st century,” he said.
“Robust market interest in the Household Energy Upgrades Fund has seen the CEFC commit $345 million to discounted finance programs, mobilising an additional $285 million from four participating co-financiers.
“Through our Powering Australian Technology Fund, we have committed $176.2 million in investment capital to 19 climate tech innovators.”
The CEFC Act requires the CEFC to invest in eligible renewable energy, energy efficiency and low emissions technologies, with its purpose to “facilitate increased flows of finance into the clean energy sector and to facilitate the achievement of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets”.
Mr Learmonth said, “Since we began investing, we have taken a deliberate approach to extend the benefits of our finance Australia-wide, across both our large-scale and smaller-scale investments.
“In a little over a decade, we have seen our capital back discounted finance for almost 80,000 asset finance projects, which are used by households, industry, farmers and small to medium sized business.”
Mr Learmonth said a hallmark of the CEFC investment approach remains its efficient use of capital to achieve clean energy outcomes.
“Since we began investing CEFC has seen $5.4 billion in repayments and returns, providing capital which is available for re-investment.
“Across our portfolio we have also maintained a sustained pace of deployment, so that our capital is put to work on reducing emissions as soon as possible. This has the added benefit of supporting economic activity. In the six months to December alone, deployment exceeded $885 million, taking lifetime deployment to $12.2 billion.”
