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The Australian government has unveiled a A$2-billion investment into a new Hydrogen Headstart programme to scale up development of Australia’s renewable hydrogen industry.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said that the investment, which was revealed in the federal Budget, was aimed at making Australia a global leader in green hydrogen, as competition for clean energy investment accelerates around the world.

“The net zero transformation is the largest change to both Australia and the world’s economy since the industrial revolution. After a decade of policy inaction, Hydrogen Headstart contributes to the over A$40-billion of investment by the government to make Australia a renewable energy superpower.

“Australia already has the largest pipeline of renewable hydrogen projects in the world. Our regions have the resources, technical skills and key trade partnerships to drive growth in hydrogen and other clean industries, as well as the jobs that come with it.

Getting to net zero emissions will require renewable hydrogen,” the Minister said.

Analysis by ClimateWorks and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) found as much as 364 000 t (44 PJ) is required by 2030 and 2.23-million tonnes (268 PJ) is required by 2050 for industrial decarbonisation.

Bowen noted that hydrogen could be combusted for industrial heat, used as a chemical input for green manufacturing, a fuel for heavy transport, or liquified and compressed for export to the country's key trading partners.

Green hydrogen is also a critical enabler for future manufacturing of green metals and other products the world needs as the transformation to net zero by 2050 gathers pace.

The government is helping to unlock clean industry growth through the A$2-billion for Hydrogen Headstart, providing revenue support for large-scale renewable hydrogen projects through competitive hydrogen production contracts. These will help bridge the commercial gap for early projects and put Australia on course for up to a gigawatt of electrolyser capacity by 2030 through two to three flagship projects.

A further A$38.2-million in funding will be provided for a Guarantee of Origin scheme, which will certify renewable energy and track and verify emissions from clean energy products, in particular hydrogen. This is critical funding to ensure Australia is seen as an attractive investment destination, to accelerate investment in an Australian hydrogen industry and to support access to future markets for verified renewable and clean products.

Furthermore, A$2-million will go to establish a fund to support First Nations people and businesses to engage with hydrogen project proponents, planning processes and programme design.

Importantly, the government will also provide A$5.6-million to support further work on the best ways to leverage Australia’s competitive strengths in renewable energy, critical minerals and highly skilled workforce to accelerate its other clean industrial and manufacturing capabilities, with further actions to be identified by the end of 2023.

“These commitments build on over half a billion dollars of investment by the Albanese government in regional hydrogen hubs, which will drive investments in this new industry across regions including Gladstone, the Hunter, Bell Bay and the Pilbara.

“Developing Australia’s hydrogen industry will help ensure Australia remains a reliable energy partner to our key regional trading partners through the energy transformation,” Bowen said.

“This investment will build critical domestic experience and expertise, and help Australia connect to global supply chains to take advantage of the immense jobs and investment potential of green hydrogen.

“These commitments will build on Australia’s established hydrogen strengths and ensure the regions that have always powered Australia are well positioned in the global race for clean energy investment and jobs, securing Australia’s future as a renewable energy superpower.”

Arena said in a statemen...

“I have made it very clear over a month ago of my interest in EVR,” Lassonde said Tuesday by email, referring to Elk Valley Resources, Teck’s metallurgical-coal unit. “At this point there’s nothing more I can add. I am waiting for Teck to decide what they want to do.”

Lassonde, 76, is the founder of mining royalty and investment company Franco-Nevada and has been a vocal proponent of keeping Elk Valley Canadian amid takeover interest from Glencore.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Globe and Mail reported Lassonde is part of a consortium that could mount a bid for Elk Valley, and that he’s had discussions with Teck and put forward a plan to buy the business.

“What we have proposed is proprietary and not to be discussed by either side,” Lassonde said in his email, sent from Ireland where he’s on vacation. “Teck has great advisers and a board that can make decisions.”

A spokesperson for Teck declined to comment on Lassonde’s comments. Teck’s Class B shares rose as much as 5.8% in Toronto trading.

Glencore last month made a $23-billion unsolicited bid for the whole of Teck, which rejected the proposal, and sought to block the company’s plan to spin off the coal business. Teck subsequently canceled a shareholder vote on the plan amid opposition from some investors.

Lassonde has previously said he’s convinced the Trudeau government could intervene to block a Teck takeover, if necessary, and that it would be a “tragedy” if a Glencore transaction was approved by the federal government.

Platinum group metals (PGMs), green metals and gold producer Sibanye-Stillwater is pursuing self-generation projects that will improve the security of its energy supply in South Africa, the company said on May 9 when it reported first-quarter group earnings of R7.8-billion.

With the aim of commissioning additional energy generation as quickly as possible, Sibanye is working with stakeholders to remove red tape and alleviate limited electricity network access.

The energy steps being taken by the Johannesburg- and New York-listed company are poised to decrease dependence on State-owned Eskom significantly, along with carbon emissions attributable to a reliance on Eskom's coal-fired generation.

In the three months to March 31, the earnings of Sibanye’s gold operations in South Africa moved from a loss of R680-million in the corresponding period of last year to a positive R774-million.

Steady at R7-billion were the first-quarter earnings of the company’s PGM operations in South Africa in the face of prices 19% lower than the record prices of the first three months of last year.

In the PGM operations in the US, a shaft incident at Sibanye’s Stillwater West mine has delayed execution of the repositioned plan, with costs remaining elevated owing to volume shortfalls and planned expenditure on ore reserve development to improve operational flexibility.

Also in the US, continued pressure has been placed on the available feed for PGM recycling operations owing to the global economic slowdown resulting in lower automotive scrapping rates. With promising signs of an uptick in automotive sales moving into the second half of 2023, feed rates are expected to normalise.

Despite elevated energy costs and industrial unrest in France, the Sandouville nickel refinery in Normandy reported improved performance and several commercial initiatives are underway to align product mix with market requirements.

The Sandouville site is earmarked as the base to establish Sibanye’s European autocatalyst recycling operations. By leveraging US PGMs recycling knowledge, Sibanye is positioned to grow its recycling presence in Europe.

The takeover of New Century Resources has built international exposure for the group’s tailings retreatment business, complementing existing investment in DRDGOLD. Exposure to the US battery industry is through the investment in ioneer and the Rhyolite Ridge project, with ioneer receiving a conditional loan of up to $700-million from the US Department of Energy during the quarter.

FATALITIES

Thabiso Ramotselisi, 41, who worked as a locomotive guard at the Driefontein Pitseng shaft of the South African gold operations, was fatally injured in a rail bound equipment accident and after the first quarter, on April 13, a tragic incident occurred at the Burnstone gold project in the South Rand goldfield, where a newly constructed surface waste rock conveyor collapsed while five contractor employees were installing a head pulley. Four people were fatally injured and a fifth person sustained serious injuries and is currently receiving treatment.

“We remain committed to the continuous improvement in health and safety at our operations and we have enhanced our risk approach to make fatality prevention our main priority,” Sibanye stated in a release to Mining Weekly.

Mining and marketing company Glencore, which last month initiated steps to provide lithium-ion battery recycling solutions at scale for Spain and Portugal in partnership with FCC Ámbito and Iberdrola, on Tuesday announced yet another potentially far-reaching step along the busying road to circularity – this time to study the feasibility of the creation of a hydrometallurgical facility for lithium-ion battery processing in Italy, in partnership with North American lithium-ion battery recycler Li-Cycle.

Necessitating fresh investment in primary mine supply and secondary recycling are recent government policies that include the European Union’s proposed Green Deal Industrial Plan and the US’s Inflation Reduction Act.

The London- and Johannesburg-listed Glencore, headed by CEO Gary Nagle, is again signalling its intent – as it runs down its own coal business – to provide minerals and metals needed for the decarbonisation of the world’s energy grid.

The project underpins Glencore’s ambition to become the circularity partner of choice for the European battery and electric vehicle industry, Glencore recycling head Kunal Sinha stated in a media release to Mining Weekly.

Li-Cycle’s expansion in Europe will replicate the company’s North American model of pre-processing spoke network and centralised post-processing hub, Li-Cycle co-founder and executive chairperson Tim Johnston said.

It is envisaged that Glencore’s Portovesme operation in Sardinia, were the lead-zinc and hydrometallurgical complex dates back to 1929, will leverage Li-Cycle’s hydrometallurgical technology.

A definitive feasibility study for this project will commence in the next 60 days for completion by mid-2024.

Commissioning of the Portovesme hub is expected to begin in late 2026 or early 2027, with Li-Cycle building on the learnings from its Rochester hub in New York.

Portovesme's processing capacity is expected to be 50 000 t to 70 000 t of black mass input a year.

The facility is expected to enable Europe to get one step closer to closing the loop on manufacturing scrap, as well as end-of-life batteries, using hydrometallurgical processes.

In a circular economy, used products or resources are recycled, composted, or re-used in a way that allows them to go back into a new lifecycle or supply chain.

Beginning in the early 1970s, the Canadian government said guys, we're losing ground in exploration investment. We don't seem to be attracting any of that cash. Let's introduce something that attracts money to the sector and they sat around the table and some really clever tax guys came up with the flow-through shares concept.

A flow-through share is a type of common share that permits the initial purchaser to claim a tax deduction equal to the amount invested. The flow-through share regime allows public companies to transfer to investors certain exploration expenditures conducted on Canadian soil.

Flow-through has attracted an inordinate amount of money and in attracting the money, promoted the sector in the jurisdiction, created jobs, provided tax, and not just from an employee perspective, but from a corporate perspective.

Even the smallest of Canadian retail investors got it. The taxi driver who drove me around in Canada had some. Investors understood it, and it's developed since then, and going back a good few years, flow-through shares was a real tag used by companies to promote their operations, notwithstanding the fact that the flow-through share benefit only applied to exploration in Canada. Around the world, people would say, well there's a flow-through share opportunity we've got to be involved in. Interestingly, flow-through was used as a sales tool to attract cash to Canada from around the world.

In the early 2000s, the South African Revenue Service and National Treasury were approached to introduce something similar in South Africa to provide a future for South African mining, its number one industry, by promoting junior mining and exploration.

South Africa’s tax authorities were of the view that something had to be done. They gazetted something that only non-mining companies took up and then introduced the 12 J tax reform that was an abject failure and subsequently closed down.

But the right tax incentives definitely do work and in fact generate a lot of tax for the fiscus. There's clear evidence of it in Canada, the UK and Australia – very clear evidence, in fact. The capital gains rollover incentive for investors investing on London’s Aim has attracted money to that market, just as superannuation incentivisation has done in Australia. But South Africa has nothing, and it’s showing, to the detriment of the fiscus and job creation.

There are millions of people in Canada that invest in junior mining and exploration. Those who have been to the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada, the PDAC, conference, report seeing many investors walking from exploration stall to junior mining stall and then getting on to their phones to provide buy instructions to their stockbrokers.

Part of the challenge in South Africa is we don't have a big enough retail investment community, which means we're reliant on the funds, which have been straight-jacketed by National Treasury to invest in the big end of the JSE only. Yet big foreign funds invest in the small end here, as Orion Minerals has proved in the Northern Cape, and foreign-listed companies invest in exploration and mining here.

In Canada, explorers don’t have to go to the funds. They can set up with a stockbroker, ask the broker to bring clients and if 100 of them invest $1 000, juniors are already on their way towards raising some decent capital.

But South Africa has a limited retail component; that needs to change, and tax incentives bring about that change by making it beneficial to invest in listed companies.

“A few years ago, I went to one of the stockbrokers in Australia and we were chatting to them. That one stockbroker traded more than the entire JSE. I don't know if that's still the case, probably is. Why? Because there's an incentive to take your hard-earned cash, put it with a stockbroker, grow your wealth, a form of saving, and allow companies to raise capital, do what they need to do, and go forward,” former senior marketing and business development ...

Although Gauteng dwellers have tended to dismiss wind as a renewable energy provider in this region, some are now being blown away by the gusts that puff across our far-stretching gold reef.

“I thought the wind didn’t blow up here,” interim Gold Fields CEO Martin Preece confessed this week during question time at the Johannesburg- and New York-listed company's environmental social and governance (ESG) presentation.

But a tall meteorological mast set up at the long-life mechanised South Deep gold mine is pointing to the opportunity to erect ten 3 MW to 4 MW wind turbines, giving a potential additional 30 MW to 40 MW of renewable energy capacity at a cost of R1-billion. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Thes wind energy generators will augment the 50 MW of sun energy that South Deep is already generating, at a capital cost (capex) of R715-million.

Interestingly, South Deep’s solar power is doing so well that it will slash R160-million to R170-million off the mine's electricity bill this year.

“If you take the capex out of it, we’re generating electricity at just under 10 c per kilowatt hour at South Deep,” Preece disclosed. That is something like 8 % of what is paid to Eskom for power from the national grid – and this netting of valuable renewable energy is being achieved along South Africa’s historic Witwatersrand gold basin, near the Far West Rand town of Westonaria.

What's more, South Deep’s spectacular solar project was carried out in-house, with the capital cost of R14 300 a kilowatt being absorbed and the margins destined to be put back in the business.

Before Gold Fields embraced energy cleanness and greenness, 93% of its emissions related to coal-fired electricity, resulting in a major need to source alternatives to grid power from Eskom to meet a 30% net emission reduction by 2030 and net-zero by 2050.

“As we invest in those wind turbines, we’re aiming to get off the grid and eventually at the tail-end, which is not in the capex yet, we would look at putting in batteries, or some other storage solution in place,” said Preece. The “some other storage solution” could be interesting because during a media briefing at the Investing in Mining Indaba in Cape Town in February, Preece said in response to Mining Weekly: “We’ve got hydrogen on our radar screen.” Interestingly, a recently released study by independent risk management and assurance firm DNV found that hydrogen has the advantage of relatively cheap storage for each kilowatt hour stored, and storage can be scaled up significantly to increase the discharge time for a given discharge rate. Hydrogen can be produced in seasons with excess electricity generation from renewables and then converted back to electricity during periods with reduced wind and solar availability. Moreover, hydrogen can be stored for a day, a week, a month, a year or years.

TARGET IS TO GET OFF NATIONAL GRID

South Deep’s ultimate aim is to get off the grid, because that is the way it can ensure business continuity, and meet the commitments it has made to get its business carbon neutral.

Questioned by Noah Capital mining analyst Rene Hochreiter on the possible introduction of gas from Mozambique, Preece said: “The challenge is the distance it has to come from Mozambique.”

Hochreiter’s question was prompted by Gold Fields’ inclusion of gas in its energy mix at its St Ives gold mine in Australia.

Said Preece: “Because gas is mined in the northern part of Western Australia, our mines get that gas at a discounted rate to even the rest of Australia.” The gas line runs down from north to south, which makes it convenient for the St Ives mine, and also a bit cleaner. But not withstanding that, Gold Fields is intent on moving St Ives away from gas and focusing on solar, wind and batteries within a microgrid framework.

“We want to get away from gas eventually. St Ives is a long-life asset. That’s the horse we’re backing as a tier-one asset in Australia in which we believe investing the right mone...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses Gold Fields’ progress in wind energy generation at its South Deep gold mine; Barrick's belief in adding ounces through the drill bit rather than through Mergers & Acquisitions; and Anglo American Platinum’s partnership with the Department of Science and Innovation, which aims to promote the development of the hydrogen economy in Africa.

Some people say you can only grow through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) but what Barrick president and CEO Dr Mark Bristow very clearly affirms is that the way to create value is by adding ounces through the drill bit rather than opportunistic M&A – and he has been successfully demonstrating this to the mining industry for decades now.

The year 2023 is like 2011, Bristow said in response to questions following Barrick’s presentation of dividend-yielding and cash-flow-increasing first-quarter results covered by Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

“The gold price is up, no one’s invested, no one’s got exploration teams, and so they have to buy and the people who make the money are the sellers. That does not fit our business model,” said South African-born Bristow, who treaded a stunningly successful discovery and development path during his period as CEO of Randgold and is doing the same as CEO of Barrick.

Reserves are constantly replenished by successful worldwide exploration programmes.

“With the proven ability to replace the reserves we are mining, we are not reliant on M&A to grow. Our new projects on the horizon should see us grow our production profile and this affords us the luxury of focusing on our organic initiatives while being able to choose external opportunities when they arise," said Bristow, whose messaging is all about sustainable profitability, growing value rather than just growing.

“A classic example is if you look at our series of transactions in 2019. They were very strategic, driven off the back of a two-and-half-year engagement, thorough due diligence. We came out in September 2018 with a clear set of deliverables, including people.

“When it comes to M&A, we have worked and have looked at everything that has been put in the market and we’ve also looked at many that haven’t been put in the market, and we haven’t very recently done any.

“But when you look at the Tanzanian deal, and the Nevada deal, that happened very quickly because they fitted all our filters easily, and that’s the way we’ll continue to do it,” said Bristow.

“I believe we have passed an important milestone this quarter on our journey to become the world’s most valued gold and copper miner.

“Mining is a long-term game and the foundation we have laid will ultimately be reflected in the full value of the company.

“We consistently invest in our future. Our existing mines support a ten-year-plus production profile which our organic growth projects will enhance.

“We’re also a leader in sustainability and our actions in this field produce measurable results that benefit all our stakeholders.

Mining analyst: You made the comment that M&A should only be pursued if the target is stressed. What type of M&A makes sense to Barrick today?

Bristow: There are two reasons you buy assets or companies and that is if they are really good assets or it’s a company that has those really good assets and is badly run, or inefficiently run. During these times of higher commodity prices and fewer options, any asset that’s half decent gets a big multiple on it, so then you start making a decision not against the asset, but your view of the gold price, or the assumption that the gold price is going to continue going upwards, and everyone knows that doesn’t happen.

If you look at Barrick in its early days and Randgold through its entire life, all the M&A we did, and we both did M&A, came with significant increases in reserves and material expansion through the drill bit. The classic one is Kibali, which had five-million ounces of gold. We’ve mined ten-million ounces and we’ve got ten-million ounces left. That’s value creation. We bought Loulo with half-a-million ounces. We’ve mined around ten-million ounces and we’ve got ten-million-plus left, so 22-million ounces on the back of that first half-a-million ounces. Randgold discovered Morila and when Barrick bought Goldstrike, I think they bought three-million ounces and it’s produced 33-million ...

Gold and copper mining company Barrick is maintaining its transition to cleaner energy and supporting education initiatives, including in East Africa’s, the company said on Wednesday when it reported first quarter results.

On the environmental front, Barrick’s total emissions in 2022 were 6% lower compared with the year before and 11% lower than the 2018 baseline.

At Loulo in West Africa’s Mali, work is under way on the expansion of Barrick’s solar plant as well as the addition of a battery storage system.

At Kibali in Central Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo, a battery back-up system is being planned for the three hydropower stations that supply the bulk of Kibali’s energy.

At Nevada in the United States of America (USA), work has started on the TS Power Plant’s solar project, as well as a natural gas co-fire project.

The New York- and Toronto-listed Barrick, headed by South African-born Dr Mark Bristow, is leading a nationwide education initiative in Tanzania and has opened Humai school in Pakistan, where the development of Reko Diq is scheduled to go into production in 2028 as one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits.

In a meeting between Bristow and Tanzania president Samia Suluhu Hassan, the company affirmed its pledge of $30-million in partnership with the Tanzanian government, towards the expansion of education infrastructure in Tanzania.

The objective is to build 1 090 classrooms, 1 640 ablution blocks and 270 dormitories across 161 schools nationwide, helping to accommodate approximately 49 000 of the estimated 190 000 students who are expected to start their A-levels in July this year. The first $10-million was committed in April and the balance will be rolled out with the programme.

“We believe that education is key to the development of the country,” Bristow stated in a media release to Mining Weekly.

North Mara has already spent $1.9-million on 87 primary and secondary schools in the Tarime District, 14 of which are the best performing schools in the district. Bulyanhulu has spent $1.8-million on 80 educational projects around the mine and is building a vocational education training college centre in Bunango Village. Barrick’s investment around the mine has given 7 557 Tanzanian girls access to education in 2022.

While continuing to build up existing assets, Barrick is also casting its net wider in a stepped-up hunt for fresh opportunities.

During the past quarter, Barrick opened up new frontiers and secured prospects in Tanzania, Canada, USA, Peru, Dominican Republic and Saudi Arabia.

To boost production in the second half of this year and keep Barrick on track to achieve its 2023 guidance, it has completed processing plant maintenance at Nevada Gold Mines, converted the Goldstrike autoclave to a carbon-in-leach process, a much-improved performance from Turquoise Ridge and the steady ramp-up of throughput at Pueblo Viejo’s expanded plant

While lower than production in the fourth quarter of 2022, first quarter production was on plan, and free cash flow still increased. Net earnings per share for the quarter were $0.07, while adjusted net earnings per share were $0.14, and the quarterly dividend was maintained at $0.10 per share.

In the Dominican Republic, construction of Pueblo Viejo’s expanded process plant is 93% complete with ramp up to full capacity by July. Currently Barrick’s biggest growth project, it has been designed to extend the mine’s life to beyond 2040 at an expected average production rate of 800 000 oz of gold a year.

Pueblo Viejo was facing closure at the time of the merger with Bristow’s South Africa-linked Randgold in January 2019, because it did not have the necessary tailings storage capacity at the time to be converted to reserves.

Today, Pueblo Viejo is the first Dominican mining company to be awarded the highest level of gender equality certification by the country’s Ministry of Women and the United Nations Development Programme, for three consecutive years.

Barri...

In a positive display of collaboration between South Africa’s public and private sectors, Anglo American Platinum’s (Amplats') Mogalakwena platinum group metals (PGMs) operation in Limpopo province hosted a potentially far-reaching hydrogen economy interchange with South Africa’s Department of Science and Innovation (DSI).

“Anglo American Platinum’s partnership with DSI aims to promote the development of the hydrogen economy across the African continent. The DSI are on site at Mogalakwena today to engage in dialogue focused on the development of the Hydrogen Valley,” the PGMs mining and marketing company stated in a comment on LinkedIn.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Amplats put its huge, world-first green hydrogen-driven haulage truck through its paces to display how South Africa’s priceless minerals endowment can provide an underpin for local economic growth, job creation for young South Africans, and simultaneous protection for Mother Earth against climate change destruction.

The 14 000-job Hydrogen Valley project is targeting the completion this year of the first phase of a green hydrogen heavy transport reality from Mogalakena mine, through Gauteng to KwaZulu-Natal.

In an accompanying video, International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy (IPHE) chairperson Dr Rebecca Maserumule highlighted the opportunities for South African youth the hydrogen economy can bring.

IPHE is a 22-member inter-governmental organisation that has focused for the last 20 years on ensuring that the global community has an awareness around the hydrogen economy and the decarbonisation benefits of moving towards the hydrogen economy. South Africa currently chairs the steering committee.

DSI power director Dr Cosmas Chiteme highlighted the importance of public-private sector partnerships as the key to enable the execution of green hydrogen projects. The Hydrogen Valley project, in particular, was bringing together DSI and companies such as Amplats, Engie and other partners to demonstrate that partnership is key to the success of executing such projects.

“We believe that it is only through these collaborative partnerships that we can mobilise the required resources, as well as the skills that are required to ensure successful implementation of these projects,” Chiteme added on video.

IPHE University of Pretoria research student Nomcebo Motsa is involved in researching the transport of green hydrogen by converting it to green ammonia, a hydrogen carrier. “As the University of Pretoria, we want to train more and more people to produce hydrogen to get to low-carbon energy. We want zero emission and that is the aim of our project,” Motsa stated.

DSI’s Hydrogen South Africa is intent on exploiting South Africa’s comparative advantage in hosting 75% of global PGMs reserves by locally developing hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.

GLOBAL HYDROGEN COUNCIL

The Hydrogen Council is tracking hydrogen projects with a total value of $200-billion, with most of them planning to use solar and wind to power large electrolysers, often in remote locations. Proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers and PEM cells make use of PGMs, which are overwhelmingly hosted by South Africa.

MICROGRID CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE

Mining Weekly can also report that South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Power Africa, a US government-led initiative coordinated by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), have teamed up to launch the Microgrid Centre of Excellence for future power systems at the CSIR to promote decentralised renewable energy solutions to address climate change and increase energy access.

The partnership is a stepping stone for the CSIR, Power Africa and USAID to identify, develop and implement solutions that capacitate energy stakeholders with microgrid and smart grid technologies. It is intended to enable the advancement of renewable energy project development, and increase access to relia...