The EXEED grant scheme is designed for organisations planning an energy investment project, with grant support of up to €3m per project available. EXEED aims to support businesses and other organisations in adopting best practice approaches to energy efficiency at the design, construction and commissioning stage of projects. The first cycle of the grant scheme ran from 2016 to 2019. Following a detailed review during 2020 (the scheme was not open to applications in 2020), the scheme was re-launched in January 2021 for a further three years.
As part of the 2021 relaunch, it was agreed to carry out a mid-scheme review which resulted in a number of recommendations being made to address issues identified. The recommendations that were approved and launched in March 2023 included:
Suspending the use of the present value of carbon (using 2019 shadow price figures) when evaluating the value for money (vfm) of the grant and adopting a simplified vfm approach which capped grants based on a €/tCO2 saved by the project
Increasing maximum grant from €1M to €3M to ensure higher impact projects are delivered via the EXEED scheme
Applying a 2025/26 projected electricity emissions factor of 200 g/kWh for both electrical energy efficiency, and electrification projects in the evaluation process to increase the valuation of electrification projects
|
EXEED Spend
|
2021
|
2022
|
2023 (YTD)
|
Total
|
|
Capital spend (€m)
|
3.39
|
1.24
|
1.17
|
5.8
|
|
Budget allocated (€m):
|
13.4
(re-profiled to €4.7m)
|
9.0
(re-profiled to €3m)
|
7.0
(re-profiled to €3m)
|
29.4
(10.7)
|
|
No. of grants awarded
|
Stage 1 Letters of offer
|
|
|
172
|
|
No. of grants awarded
|
Stage 2 Letters of offer
|
|
|
41
|
|
Average amount per award
|
Stage 1
|
|
|
€13,000
|
|
Average amount per award:
|
Stage 2
|
|
|
€159,000
|
Following the changes made in March 2023, SEAI have reported an increase in the scale and impact of projects being approved under the scheme. SEAI issued its largest ever grant offer under the EXEED scheme in November 2023 for €686,000 surpassing the previous largest offer issued in September 2023 for €559,000. There is also another stage 2 grant application request for over €1.5M working through the evaluation process at present (December).
