Northern Powergrid has announced its partnership with Regen for the Net Zero Community Energy Fund as it enters its third year.
The grant provides funding of up to £10,000 per scheme, with £50,000 available to help new or existing community energy organisations and climate action groups across the North East, Yorkshire and Humber, and northern Lincolnshire.
Over the past two years, the fund has already supported 17 net zero community initiatives, including new community-owned solar generation, community engagement on net zero, and exploration of local electricity trading.
Ultimately, the fund aims to help new and existing groups build capacity, access expertise, and explore feasible project ideas in the early risk stages of project development.
Applications are accepted from community-based organisations and charities such as volunteer-led groups, registered charities, community benefit societies, community interest companies or not-for-profit organisations with charitable aims.
The organisation must also have an income of less than £100,000 in the most recent financial year.
Katie Privett, Northern Powergrid’s regional insights manager, said: “We are proud to work in partnership with Regen to help local energy groups make a positive difference to communities across our region.
“The Net Zero Community Energy Fund provides vital funds to empower a thriving, connected and strong community energy sector, from setting up new energy groups to installing solar panels and replacing old boilers with efficient heat pumps which are now fit for the future.”
Community-owned, community-run
Local communities have often been integral to renewable energy projects. One of the largest and most recent in the UK is a 14-turbine wind farm being built in the Scottish Borders.
The site, set to be Britain’s biggest people-owned renewable energy project, has the potential to power more than 50,000 homes and generate around 145GWh per year.
It will be developed by BayWa r.e., which has delivered 144 wind projects worldwide and installed about 2.5GW of wind energy.
People across the country can co-own the wind farm via a co-operative, powering their homes with up to 100% green energy, cutting bills and reducing their carbon footprint.
Moreover, UK Power Networks (UKPN) recently introduced a tool to help local authorities find future sites for community-owned wind and solar farms.
The tool combines spatial and land use datasets for ground-based solar PV and onshore wind, over 18,000 square kilometres.
The data can be filtered and layered with other useful Net Zero datasets in UKPN’s Open Data Portal to view the available energy capacity. Users can generate a map with traffic light colour coding showing locations for new projects.