March 2012: A new fund by a fund management organisation called the FSE Group, has been launched to support communities seeking to develop renewable energy generation infrastructure.
The website for the Community Generation Fund states that the fund “will provide commercial but creative loan funding for communities at the pre-planning (“development”) stage of their projects, as well as the construction (post-planning) stage:
- Development Loans: Contingently-repayable loans for design, environmental and other external costs involved in achieving the required planning and other consents/licenses
- Construction Loans: Long-term loans for equipment, construction & commissioning costs (post planning consent) either stand-alone or alongside bank finance.
The Fund will consider project sizes from 25kWp capacity upwards, subject to assessment of technical viability, financial viability and social impact. The level of project typically is likely to involve total feasibility/pre-planning costs of £20,000-£150,000 maximum (depending on technology and scale) and construction costs of £250,000-£2,000,000 maximum.” The invitation for communities to submit “pre-applications” has a closing date of 16 April 2012.
This fund follows on from the recent announcement by the Co-operative’s Community Energy Challenge which has recently closed (29 February – and has received 123 applications) and also the next round of the energyshare fund (which has a deadline by the end of March for applicants), as well as recent Government-funded community energy grant schemes, CSEP and LEAF.