January 27 2014: The Government’s new Community Energy Strategy is being launched today and press reports have highlighted that it will include a new £10m Urban Community Energy Fund (UCEF). This mirrors the existing Rural Community Energy Fund, and is clearly welcome news for London-based community-led energy projects.
This fund will be open to non-rural communities and will provide up to approximately £150,000 of funding for feasibility and pre-planning development work to help projects become investment ready. The funding will be available in two stages:
- Stage one will be a grant of up to approximately £20,000 for feasibility of renewable energy projects.
- Stage two will be a loan of up to approximately £130,000 to support pre-planning development work, planning applications and to develop robust business cases to attract further development.
No details as yet to when the Fund will be launched or how long it will operate for. Hopefully this will all become apparent later today…