The $A100 million REDI is a joint program administered by the Department for the Environment and Heritage and the Department for Industry.

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said that the first two rounds of REDI had delivered more than $A33 million to 16 Australian-owned renewable energy companies to date.

The recipients of the Round 2 REDI funding are:

# Australia Renewable Fuels (South Australia) – $348,100 for micro-algal feedstock biodiesel production;

# CSR Sugar (Queensland) – $5 million to further develop its ethanol-to-electrical-energy program using "sugar booster" technology;

# Geothermal Resources (South Australia) – $2.4 million towards its Frome project to exploit the heat-generating capacity of buried hot radiogenic granite for energy generation;

# New Energy Partners (NSW) – $258,000 for a parabolic solar collector for medium temperature application;

# Powercorp (Northern Territory) – $2.34 million to develop an electricity grid stabilising system for a large wind farm interconnection; and

# SQC (Queensland) – $200,000 for production of hydrocarbons from algae.

"The diversity in this round's recipients bodes well for development of future energy technologies from alternate transport fuels through to wind farms, solar energy, geothermal and biomass technologies. All of which will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions," Macfarlane said.

Environment Minister Ian Campbell said the REDI system's focus on research and development programs complemented the Australian Government's initiatives in supporting renewable and low-emission projects.

The closing date for businesses wishing to apply for Round 3 funding is September 7, 2006.

More information on REDI can be found on the [AusIndustry website].