A $91 million federal investment has been made in a bid to slash over 1 million tonnes of climate pollution annually.

The Albanese Government has announced funding under the Powering the Regions Fund, targeting six new projects.

The government says each dollar of its support will leverage two dollars of industry investment.

The selected projects span across various sectors, including aluminium, mining, fuel refining, and chemical production. 

These efforts seek to lower energy use and replace fossil fuels with cleaner alternatives while also creating new jobs and supporting existing ones in regional communities.

The six grants include:

  • $37.2 million to reduce ventilation methane emissions at Kestrel Coal in the Bowen Basin, QLD

  • $28 million for a solar and battery storage system at Incitec Pivot Fertilisers in Phosphate Hill, QLD

  • $9.8 million to deploy emissions capture technologies at the Dyno Nobel ammonium nitrate facility in the Bowen Basin, QLD

  • $7.5 million to install a low emission waste gas incinerator at CSBP Limited’s sodium cyanide plant in Kwinana, WA

  • $5.4 million for energy efficiency upgrades at the Boyne Aluminium Smelter in Gladstone, QLD

  • $3 million for electrification at the Viva Energy Refinery in Geelong, VIC

Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen says the projects “unlock technologies that have not been deployed at scale in Australia”, such as cutting methane from ventilation air shafts in underground coal mines and reducing nitrous oxide emissions, which have significantly higher warming potential than CO2.

The projects funded by this initiative form the second batch of the Powering the Regions Fund’s $600 million Safeguard Transformation Stream. 

This stream is currently open for further applications through the government’s Business Grant Hub.