Salix funding available for solar (Nov 10, 2017)


In addition to providing funding through the Solar for Schools Community Benefit Society (CBS), we would like to share information about another funding option for your solar projects. Salix, which provides interest-free funding for energy efficiency programmes in public sector buildings, now includes solar as one of the technologies it will fund and has an application available online.

Here is an overview of what you need to know about funding through Salix as certain conditions and limitations apply.

Eligibility
  • Unlimited funds for LEA schools, applications can be made year round.
  • Limited funding pots are made for academies and they tend to go very quickly.
  • School expected to have already implemented basic energy efficiency measures.
  • Project must deliver an 8-year payback, but can be combined with other efficiency measure and sources of funding to achieve this.
  • Project must not cost more that £200 per tonne of C02 saved over the project lifetime according to their calculator.
Features
  • Project has no size limit, but must be technically sensible.
  • FIT income and export income from solar panels can be included in payback calculation, based on sensible assumptions.
Conclusions
  • Salix funding improves total saving by about £500 per £1000 of initial investment over the lifetime of the project.
  • There are little or no short term savings during the 8 year Salix re-payment period.
  • Schools where solar can already deliver a good return can increase their total returns further by sacrificing short term benefits.
  • Marginal solar projects can be made viable by combining them with other programmes like LED and partly funding them with Salix.
Process
  • We can apply on the school's behalf. We just need to provide the contact details of the person at the school who has asked us to apply.
  • There is a two-week turnaround from Salix on projects where assumption have been agreed upon beforehand.
Next steps
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