Swirling doubts over the ability of Carnegie Clean Energy to deliver a marquee wave power project in Albany have intensified after the Premier described the company’s predicament as “very concerning”.

Mark McGowan, who is visiting Albany for a two-day caucus retreat, insisted this week that the State Government would give Carnegie until a deadline later this month to prove it could come up with its share of the funding for the Albany wave farm.

But Mr McGowan acknowledged he had held doubts about the embattled group’s financial capacity and said its problems were largely outside the Government’s control.

He sheeted much of the blame home to the Federal Government, which has proposed changes to research and development tax concessions that threaten to cripple Carnegie’s business model.

He said that until a Senate committee investigating the R&D changes reported this month, the Government would be unable to tell whether Carnegie could meet its funding requirements for Albany.

“It’s very unfortunate because the R&D tax concessions by the Commonwealth Government that are important to the business model for Carnegie were changed,” Mr McGowan said.

“That was outside our control.

“It’s gone before a Senate committee, the Senate committee is currently examining it, we’ll await the outcome of that and also await the outcome of Carnegie saying whether or not they can deliver before making any further decisions.”

In November, Regional Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan threw Carnegie a lifeline when she agreed to extend the deadline for the company to produce a funding plan until mid-February.

The plan had been due by December 7 under an agreement for the Government to provide Carnegie with a $15.75 million grant, $2.65 million of which has already been awarded to the struggling firm.

Mr McGowan said if Carnegie failed to show it could meet its obligations the State would consider how it could reallocate the unspent balance.

But he stressed the Government would not cut short Carnegie’s contract unless it had no other option, arguing that doing so would leave the State legally exposed.

“To jump ahead of that process we’d obviously set ourselves up for legal action and we don’t want to do that,” he said.

Shares in Carnegie were up 0.1¢ to 0.4¢ at 11.45am, well below the recent high of 2.4¢ in July last year.