Apply for a €45,000 grant to develop a business plan for your community energy project
The European Energy Communities Facility has recently launched its first call for proposals. Until 30 September, emerging energy communities from the 27 EU Member States, Iceland, Moldova, North Macedonia and Ukraine can apply for a lump sum grant of €45,000 to develop a robust business plan for their project. Moreover, if your application is successful, you will have access to national peer-to-peer exchanges and a capacity-building programme to support you in developing and implementing the business plan. In this call, the Energy Communities Facility will distribute over €3 million among 73 initiatives in total, empowering citizens to drive a fair, democratic and sustainable energy transition.
The grant will cover all groundwork needed to prepare a business plan for your energy community: technical and financial assessments, legal and administrative procedures, and other pre-development tasks such as feasibility studies. Preparatory work necessary to structure a sound, viable, and bankable business plan can be covered. While the main objective of the call is to help emerging energy communities secure the financing required to bring their project to life and professionalise their activities, already established energy communities aiming to explore new services can also apply.
The only requirements to apply are to be registered as a legal entity, comply with one of the EU definitions for energy communities, be based in an eligible country, and commit to follow up on the grant obligations. You can use our eligibility self-check to find out whether you are eligible.
To offer equal opportunities to all, applications will be split into two region categories based on the legal framework for energy communities in each country. This means that initiatives developed in countries where the context for community energy is more challenging will not have to compete with those from countries with a more favourable context. Applications will be evaluated by independent experts to ensure a fair and balanced assessment. These experts will assess the energy community’s operations and readiness, its project ambition, the coherence and plausibility of the proposal, and the impact on the local community.
Are you ready to take your community energy project to the next level? Check out the call documents to learn more and apply now!
The Energy Communities is also hosting National Info Events, the dates of which are available on their events page.
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