York residents and community groups are being urged to bid for a share of the £10m Urban Community Energy Fund.
The fund provides grants and loans to support urban communities, like York, to develop renewable energy projects.
Grants of up to £20,000 are available to help develop ideas into projects. The fund also will provide loans of up to £130,000 to develop projects through to the planning stages and to be in a position to attract funding to deliver the project.
The following groups are eligible to apply for the fund:
- Registered Company (including CICs)
- Charitable Incorporated Organisation
- Registered Societies (formerly known as IPS)
- Parish and Town Councils
Community group will need to be incorporated to apply to UCEF.
The technologies that will be considered under UCEF include the following:
- wind turbines
- hydropower
- solar photo voltaic
- solar thermal
- ground, water and air source heat pumps
- anaerobic digestion
- biomass
- low carbon/renewable heat networks
- gas combined heat and power (CHP) units
The deadline for applications is 22 December 2014. Further rounds will follow in 2015.
Energy and climate change secretary Ed Davey said: “This is all about investing in renewable energy sources, creating jobs and changing the way renewable energy is developed in the UK.”
England’s first project has seen Harvey’s Brewery in Lewes, East Sussex use solar energy to cut its bills while the community benefits from money back under the feed in tariff.
For more information please visit www.gov.uk/urban-community-energy-fund#who-can-apply