At a time when high energy costs are impacting every business, any help to reduce consumption for the most intensive industrial processes can only provide welcome relief.
This is the aim of the government’s Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) – and up to £60 million of Phase 2 funding is currently on offer to eligible businesses who successfully apply before 29 April.
To qualify, your business must be based in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland1 and operate one or more energy-intensive processes in the areas of manufacturing, data centre activities, mining, quarrying, and the recovery/recycling of materials.
There are three areas of focus for funding:
- Feasibility and engineering studies: to enable your business to investigate specific energy efficiency and decarbonisation projects prior to making an investment decision. The minimum funding threshold is £30,000 per feasibility study and £50,000 per engineering study, and the maximum is £7 million and £14 million respectively.
- Energy efficiency: deployment of technologies to reduce industrial energy consumption. The minimum funding threshold is £100,000 and the maximum is £14 million.
- Deep decarbonisation: deployment of technologies to achieve industrial emissions savings. The minimum funding threshold is £100,000 and the maximum is £30 million.
Businesses can apply for support in more than one area. But funding will only be granted where a project could not go ahead without government support. And any project must be completed by 31 March 2025, or 1 May 2024 for the feasibility study.
If the timing is not right for now, there are further funding rounds that are due to open in May and then October 2022 for an additional £100 million.
You can find out more here.
Before applying, you can also check if your proposal is eligible by contacting the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) via ietf@beis.gov.uk (please include ‘Eligibility screening’ in the email subject line). The BEIS Team can provide further guidance too, if required.
Even if your business is not eligible – or your application is not successful this time – we can help you to reduce energy spend and emissions with a tailored approach to energy efficiency and decarbonisation.
You can find out more from your Client Lead (existing customers). Or get in touch with one of our experts.
1 Businesses in Scotland can apply to the Scottish Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (SIETF). Contact SIETF@gov.scot for more information.