Australia’s ARENA Announces $100 Million Solar ScaleUp Challenge

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has launched the global Solar ScaleUp Challenge. With an aim to identify solar innovations that can bring down costs and deliver solar faster, shortlisted submissions could gain access to a total pool of up to AU $100 million (INR 550 crores) in grant funding from ARENA. Final submissions close on 14 August 2024.

What is the Solar ScaleUp Challenge

This initiative is calling on innovators, energy offtakers, financiers, anyone involved in the construction and operation of solar projects, as well as people from other industries with solutions that could apply to solar photovoltaics (PV).

If you have groundbreaking solutions that can reduce the cost of installation, operations and maintenance for large-scale solar PV, then this is the place for you to apply to. Right from innovative designs and cutting-edge solutions such as robotics, automation, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence.

ARENA has teamed up with Greenhouse, who run an innovative online platform designed to facilitate the formation of multi-disciplinary teams and support collaboration on a global scale.

The Solar ScaleUp Challenge welcomes standalone project submissions or can facilitate the formation of project teams, for example a technology provider pairing up with an EPC/developer and an investor. There will be opportunities for collaboration, partnerships with industry leaders and innovators, and the chance to amplify your brand and scale your technology solutions.

To get involved people can:

• Learn more about the Challenge and sign up to stay in the loop.
• Register for ARENA’s upcoming webinar on AEST Wed 3 July.

Keep watching this space to track how the challenge progresses!