£10m Funding Round Opens to Support Vulnerable Energy Consumers

Charitable organisations that support energy customers in Great Britain are invited to apply for grants to support individual energy consumers in vulnerable situations.

The Energy Saving Trust has been appointed by Ofgem to distribute payments to charities from energy companies who have breached rules. The Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme will be administered until 2021.

The priority of the scheme is to support individual energy consumers in vulnerable situations, with a small percentage of the fund available to support innovative products and services that will help existing or future energy consumers.

The funds can pay for anything from making a home more energy efficient, to providing advice that helps consumers keep on top of their bills.

A total of £10 million is being provided for Round Five. There are three separate funding strands to ensure that projects of a similar nature and scale are assessed against each other:

The Main Fund contains £7.5 million and is aimed at projects seeking grants between £50,000 and £2 million
The Small Grants Fund contains £1 million and is aimed at projects seeking grants of between £20,000 and £49,999
The Innovation Fund contains £1.5 million and is aimed at projects seeking grants between £50,000 to £750,000.

The scheme can provide capital or revenue funding and can provide up to 100% of the project cost. It can only fund projects lasting up to two years.

Examples of the kind of activity that could be funded through Energy Redress include:

Engaging vulnerable customers with energy issues and referring them for support
Energy advice that does not duplicate existing advice services
Installation of energy saving or renewable energy measures that cannot be funded elsewhere and/or are innovative or are being used in innovative ways
In-home safety advice and measures related to energy systems
Training and education on energy that is targeted at supporting vulnerable customers.

Charitable organisations that support energy customers in England, Scotland and Wales are eligible to apply.

The deadline for applications is 18 October 2019.

Full details…