Funding for energy efficiency and electrification upgrades for local governments
Community Energy Upgrades Fund Round 1
The Community Energy Upgrades program will co-fund energy efficiency and electrification upgrades for local governments to deliver reduced energy bills and emissions from local government owned and/or operated facilities.
Closing date: Tuesday 30 April 2024 5:00pm AEST Tue 30 Apr 2024 5:00pm AEST
What do you get?
Grants between $25,000 and $2,500,000 to cover up to 50% of eligible expenditure.
Who is this for?
Local government bodies.
Overview
The Community Energy Upgrades Fund will deliver $100 million over 2 funding rounds and will run over 3 years from 2024-25. The program will co-fund energy efficiency and electrification upgrades for local governments to deliver reduced energy bills and emissions from local government owned and/or operated facilities. The program will contribute to Australia meeting its emission reduction targets of 43 percent by 2030, net zero emissions by 2050, and support 82% renewable electricity generation by 2030. It will also support the Commonwealth-led National Energy Performance Strategy (NEPS).
The objectives of the program are to support:
- the Government’s broader efforts to reduce emissions and improve energy performance and contribute to Australia meeting its emission reduction targets of 43 percent by 2030, Net-Zero emissions by 2050 and 82% renewable electricity generation by 2030
- local governments to decarbonise their operations and reduce energy bills through energy efficiency and load flexibility upgrades and electrification of their facilities
- the improvement in energy performance necessary to utilise renewable electricity more easily and improve system reliability.
The intended outcomes of the program are:
- reduced energy bills and emissions from local government owned and/or operated facilities
- installed energy efficiency, load flexibility and electrification technology that is commercially available
- improved capability of local governments and the wider community to implement energy upgrades and electrification projects in their facilities
- increased capacity of domestic supply chains and labour force to support significant future investment in energy efficiency upgrades
- improved workforce skills in delivering and operating energy transition projects.
Applicants must contribute at least 50% of the agreed eligible project costs.
Projects must be completed by 31 March 2027.
You must not commence your project until you execute a grant agreement with the Commonwealth.
Check if you can apply
You can apply if you meet the eligibility criteria. The eligibility criteria are a set of rules that describe who we can consider for this grant. You can apply if you:
- are an eligible entity
- have an eligible project
- have eligible expenditure.
The rules are in the grant opportunity guidelines.
You can apply if you:
- have an Australian business number (ABN)
and are one of the following entities:
- a Local Government Body
- a Joint Local Government Body (as defined in section 14 of the grant opportunity guidelines).
You can’t apply if:
- you or a member of your Project Partnership are not a Local Government Body or Joint Local Government Body
- your organisation, or your project partner is an organisation included on the National Redress Scheme’s list of Institutions that have not joined or signified intent to join the Scheme
- you employ 100 or more employees and have not complied with the Workplace Gender Equality Act (2012)
- your organisation is not included in section 4.1 of the grant opportunity guidelines.
Partner with other organisations
Joint applications are acceptable, provided you have a lead organisation who is the main driver of the project. All parties within the joint application must be an eligible entity. For further information on joint applications, refer to section 7.2 of the grant opportunity guidelines. The lead organisation must fill out the application form.
If we give your group the grant, the lead organisation:
- signs the grant agreement
- is responsible for making sure your group follows the rules outlined in the grant agreement.
You must complete your project by 31 March 2027. The maximum project length is 24 months.
Your project must:
- be located in Australia
- be aimed at meeting the objectives of the grant opportunity, as outlined in Section 2 of the grant opportunity guidelines
- have at least $50,000 in eligible expenditure
- be aimed at energy efficiency and/or electrification and/or load flexibility upgrades that reduce costs and emissions for local government’s facilities or operations using commercially available technologies.
You can apply for a grant between $25,000 and $2,500,000.
You can use this grant funding for:
- newly purchased or pre-existing plant and equipment
- hired/leased plant
- constructed plant
- labour expenditure and on-costs
- contract expenditure
- other eligible expenditure.
Please see the grant opportunity guidelines for more information.
The grant can only be spent on eligible activities and eligible expenditure incurred on the agreed project as defined in your grant agreement.
To be eligible, expenditure must:
- be a direct cost of the project
- be incurred by you for your agreed project activities.
The project expenditure must be incurred between the project start and end date for it to be eligible unless stated otherwise.
How to apply
Check if you’re ready to apply for a grant
Finding a suitable grant opportunity is just the start of the process to get funding. The application process can take time and effort. Understanding the entire process will help you be grant ready and may improve your chances of getting funding.
Use our checklist to find out what it takes to apply for a grant.
When you're ready to apply
When the online form is available, you must submit your application through the online portal. You’ll need to set up an account when you first log into the portal. The portal allows you to apply for and manage a grant or service in a secure online environment.
First we check that you meet the eligibility criteria. Only eligible applications will proceed to the assessment stage.
We give each criterion a certain number of points. The Committee will assess your application based on the weighting given to each criterion.
We will consider your application on its merits and to the extent to which the application represents value with relevant money.
We’ll decide whether to award you the grant based on the total number of points given to your application.
We will only award funding to applications that score at least 50% against each assessment criterion.
- Assessment criterion 1: Describe how your project will reduce local government greenhouse gas emissions and/or provide load flexibility (30 points).
- Assessment criterion 2: Wider impact of the grant funding (20 points).
- Assessment criterion 3: Capacity, capability and resources to deliver the project (30 points).
- Assessment criterion 4: Economic and social benefits (20 points).
The amount of detail and supporting evidence you provide should be relative to the project size, complexity and grant amount requested.
The program delegate makes the final decision.
Apply now
Apply for the Community Energy Upgrades Fund Round 1 now.
Before you apply, make sure you:
- read and understand the grant opportunity guidelines
- read all eligibility and assessment criteria closely
- have all required documentation listed in section 7.1 of the grant opportunity guidelines, including detailed evidence that supports the assessment criteria. You must attach all required documents in your application.
Contact
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