The Hon. Greg Hunt, MP

Minister for the Environment

Parliament House Canberra

ACT 2600

Dear Minister,

Re: Curtailment of grants for renewable energy innovation from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency

We the undersigned are research students, early career researchers and professional staff working to further Australia’s leadership in our field and to advance the development of technology to power society in a sustainable future.

We are delighted, as we see from your press release dated 23 March, that the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will continue and will support relatively mature technologies under development to transition to manufacture. However, we are writing to express our deep concern that ARENA’s granting function of will be severely curtailed. Most of us are engaged in research at the earlier Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). We are alarmed that grants like those that currently support our work will no longer be available from ARENA and that many hundreds of research and research training positions will be lost. Further, grant support for early-stage commercialisation will be lost, which will choke the flow of early stage research into commercial deployment.

We are aware that grants for our field may still be sought through the Australian Research Council (ARC) but we also know that the success rate is very low. Australia quarantines research funds for many special areas such as medical, defence, nuclear and marine science research and, until now, renewable energy. We believe that our field is at least as important for this country’s future wellbeing as any of these other special areas.

Grants are an essential component of technology innovation. This new policy will damage Australian renewable energy R&D, early stage commercialisation and education. Support for innovation lies at the heart of accelerated growth of the renewable energy industry. It supports commercialisation of higher-TRL results directly through technology development, and indirectly through education and training of skilled engineers and scientists. Through the consistent provision of grants for innovation over 40 years, Australia has contributed very far above its weight in renewable energy innovation through, primarily, university research groups.

Grant-supported renewable energy R&D and education is a crucial part of climate change mitigation, and will be seriously downgraded by this new policy. We urge the Government to continue ARENA’s grant funding role in order to support R&D, early stage commercialisation, education and our future opportunities.

We would like the opportunity for a delegation to meet with you to discuss this matter.

Yours sincerely,