Australia’s specialist clean energy investor

The CEFC further strengthened our position as Australia’s leading specialist clean energy investor in 2018–19, achieving a number of significant milestones in the year, with our finance continuing to play a catalytic role in the clean energy sector.

This progress reflected the evolving maturity of our portfolio, investment approach and financial performance, and our continuing endeavours to contribute to lower emissions across key areas of the Australian economy. As the Prime Minister Mr Scott Morrison MP commented in a media release, “we have the world’s most successful green bank in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation”.¹

In our sixth year of activity, the CEFC made new investment commitments of almost $1.5 billion in the 12 months to 30 June 2019, across 30 transactions with a total investment value of $6.3 billion. We were pleased to deploy $1.3 billion into the clean energy sector in the 12-month period, accelerating the delivery of a diverse range of initiatives Australia-wide.

We also saw a record $321 million in CEFC capital repaid or returned in the year, underscoring our ability to earn a positive return on our investments and reinvest CEFC finance on behalf of the Australian community.

The increasing scale and depth of our portfolio, and the breadth of our market activity, have provided a strong base from which to extend our focus into important areas of investment potential in 2019–20. This gives us the opportunity to further demonstrate the important role we play in attracting additional private sector investment into Australia’s clean energy transition.

In 2018–19, we sharpened our focus on emerging technologies that have yet to attract sufficient interest from mainstream investors, including behind-the-meter generation and grid solutions.

Alongside increasing interest in pumped storage and large-scale batteries, these technologies will be vital to maximising the integration of our abundant renewable energy resources into a strong and reliable low emissions grid.

New CEFC commitments in 2018–19 included $940 million in large and small-scale renewable energy, and a further $524 million across a broad range of energy efficiency and low emissions investments. Each dollar of CEFC finance committed in 2018–19 was matched by more than $3 from the private sector.

The work of our $200 million Clean Energy Innovation Fund continued to provide leadership in the exciting cleantech sector in 2018–19, with its lifetime investment commitments reaching $69 million.

We were also pleased to deliver $400 million in finance for some 5,800 smaller-scale projects during the year, together with our co-finance partners who allow us to reach smaller-scale borrowers around the country.

As expected, the scale of new investment commitments in 2018–19 was lower than the record $2.3 billion achieved in the previous year. This reflected broader market conditions, including the build out of the Renewable Energy Target. Grid and transmission constraints also contributed to a lower rate of investment activity across the renewables sector.

The fact Australia leads the world in per capita investment in clean energy, we have the world’s most successful green bank in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and that we’re on track to have around a quarter of our electricity needs met by renewables by 2020 all underscores the work underway to reduce our global emissions.

Prime Minister
Hon Scott Morrison MP