The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) welcomes today’s announcement by the Australian Government expanding the Future Fuels Fund to nearly $250 million to support an even bigger roll out of enabling infrastructure in urban and regional Australia.
As the centrepiece of the Government’s Future Fuels and Vehicles Strategy, the Future Fuels Fund focuses on investments to address barriers to low emission vehicle uptake, partnering with the private sector through a co-investment model to deliver a total of more than $500 million in enabling infrastructure.
The expanded fund will help to reshape and reduce emissions in Australia’s transport sector by including more support for business fleets, new technologies for long-distance and heavy vehicles and public charging and hydrogen refueling stations. The initiative will also incentivise households to use smart chargers to boost the reliability of local electricity networks. The expanded Fund will continue to be administered by ARENA.
Earlier this year ARENA launched the first funding round under the Future Fuels Fund, which was initially announced as part of the 2020-21 Federal Budget with a funding envelope of $71.9 million, aimed at addressing barriers to the roll out of new vehicle technologies.
The first round saw $24.55 million in grant funding provided to five applicants across 19 projects to expand Australia’s public fast charging network for battery electric vehicles (EVs) nationwide.
Evie, Chargefox, Ampol, Engie and Electric Highways Tasmania will deliver 403 new fast charging stations, each capable of charging at least two vehicles concurrently at 50 kW or above. Round 1 of the Fund will see a seven-fold increase in the number of fast charging stations in Australia’s most populated capital cities and regional centres.
ARENA has also previously provided over $33 million in support for EV charging projects, including Australia’s first two intercity ultra fast charging networks on major highways being rolled out by Chargefox and Evie Networks. ARENA has also previously supported managed charging and smart charging trials run by ActewAGL in Canberra, AGL, Jemena, and Origin, as well as the roll out of free public charging stations in four Adelaide council areas by JOLT. ARENA has also supported hydrogen and biofuel projects, including hydrogen refuelling projects with Toyota, BOC and Ark Energy, announced this week.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the funding injection would expand the Future Fuels Fund program and fast-track investment across the entire transport sector.
“As electric vehicle sales increase, we need to ensure that we have adequate charging infrastructure across Australia. We welcome the Government’s release of the Future Fuels and Vehicles Strategy which highlights the importance and overall success of the Future Fuels Fund that ARENA is administering to deliver charging infrastructure.
Having initially focused on fast charging networks across Australia, we are now beginning to look at low emission technologies across the transport sector including switching fleets to EVs, solutions for buses and trucks and smart charging,” he said.
ARENA is currently designing Round 2 of the Future Fuels Fund, with a focus on fleets, which will launch in early 2022.
For further information, visit our Future Fuels Fund webpage or read the Government’s Future Fuels and Vehicles Strategy.
ARENA media contact:
0410 724 227 | media@arena.gov.au
Download this media release (PDF 103KB)
- Read more about the Future Fuels Fund
- Back to the Newsroom
