The Communities Energy Grant is part of the Government's National Retrofit Programme aimed at upgrading building stock and facilities to high standards of energy efficiency and renewable energy usage, thereby reducing fossil fuel usage, energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Communities Energy Grant supports cross-sectoral and community-oriented partnership approaches that deliver energy savings to a range of building types including public, commercial and community buildings with a particular focus on using the projects to deliver home retrofits.
The Scheme supports new approaches to achieving high quality improvements in energy efficiency within Irish communities. By bringing together groups of buildings under the same retrofit programme, communities projects facilitate community-wide energy improvements more efficiently and cost effectively than might otherwise be possible. The primary objective of the scheme is to support and maximise the number of home energy upgrades delivered. Non-domestic projects are supported to support the engagement of communities to build low carbon and sustainable communities.
Under the Scheme, the SEAI place a maximum limit on the number of beneficiaries who may apply in any one grant application as excessive beneficiary numbers could significantly increase the administration and documentation requirements making the Scheme unmanageable. As part of the governance of the delivery of the projects, SEAI make payments to the contract project coordinators as they are responsible for managing all aspects of the projects. It is not possible to make payment to multiple different beneficiaries as this could create difficulties identifying who is responsible for the overall delivery of the project and cause project financial governance difficulties.
Individual projects which finish works early, may by agreement with the project coordinator, be paid in full before other projects within the contract are complete. This allows for a very flexible approach to managing project cash flow.
A budget of €43 million has been provided for the Community Energy Grant scheme in 2022. This represents a 43% increase on the 2021 funding allocation and is the largest ever budget for the Scheme.
The Government has approved a package of supports as part of the delivery of Ireland’s residential retrofit programme. These measures are aimed at making it easier and more affordable for homeowners to undertake home energy upgrades, for warmer, healthier and more comfortable homes, with lower energy bills and emission. Included in these measures is the establishment of the new National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme, offering unprecedented grant levels, increased from around 30% to 50% of the cost of a typical B2 home energy upgrade with a heat pump. Importantly, these new higher grant rates will also be available for domestic upgrade projects under the Community Energy Grant Scheme.
The Community Energy Grant Scheme is open for contractors to make an application to participate in the current call. The team in SEAI are working to make the Communities team available for local workshops nationwide in the coming months to support smaller contractors to participate in the scheme which is now open all year round.
