ARENA provides $45.2m funding for Vast Solar project

The concentrated solar power plant project has a 30MW/288MWh capacity.

The Australian Government has allocated $45.2m ($65m) in funding for the construction of Vast Solar’s VS1 project, a 30-megawatt (MW)/288MW-hour concentrated solar power (CSP) project located in Port Augusta in South Australia.

In a statement, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency said the funding is conditional upon the reaching of financial close which is expected by late 2023. The project is seen to start commercial operations by late 2025.

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ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the expansion of Vast Solar’s technology into a commercial-scale project demonstrates that it can play a crucial role in generating and storing renewable energy.

“With the increasing need for dispatchable renewable generation and longer duration energy storage, CSP has potential to assist Australia’s energy transition alongside pumped hydro and large scale batteries,” he said.

The $141.3m (A$203m) project aims to show the performance of the CSP technology at the utility-scale to explore the potential for more investment in future projects.

$1 = A$1.44