June 2014: DECC have issued a tender to appoint an administrator for their recently announced £10m Urban Community Energy Fund (details of which are outlined in an earlier post here). The tender seeks to procure a contractor to set up and manage the Fund until 2018, with the possibility of an extension, and sets out a list of requirements including:
- The contractor will be required to develop a mechanism for administering the repayment of loans from the Fund
- Should have ability to provide advice to applicants to the Fund
- Show an understanding of the energy technologies covered by the Fund
- Develop a digital service (website) for users of the Fund
- Develop supporting material, for example application forms, for the Fund
- and do all this to in time for the Fund go-live in September 2014 [with the Fund likely to be launched by Ministers at the Local Authorities and Communities Conference organised by DECC and Oxford City Council, which is to be held on 4 September. This conference will be followed by the Community Energy Awards – details here].
- The deadline date for organisations to apply to the tender is 21 July 2014.
The tender sets out that applicants to the Fund will need to:
- Show the organisation is a community group as defined within the fund (the exact criteria of which is to be confirmed); and
- Submit a business case related to the project that are requesting funds for, with this business case to be assessed by the fund administrator.
A recent presentation by the Head of DECC’s Community Energy Team (at an event held on 11 June launching the results of the Kingston smart communities project) provides some additional background to work being undertaken to support the uptake of community energy.