Are you an eco-entrepreneur?
- By Helen Craig -
- Apr 30, 2012
Last Week saw London host the international Clean Energy Ministerial event, where the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Davey, announced £35million of funding for clean energy entrepreneurs. The Energy Entrepreneurs Fund will help small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) develop and demonstrate their technologies.
He said: “Part of the way that we're going to tackle climate change and get clean energy is through innovation, particularly with SMEs.
“We’re allocating a fund of thirty-five million pounds which will help innovators and entrepreneurs develop and demonstrate low carbon technologies.”
The funding is part of £200 million awarded to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) towards innovation in the 2010 Spending Review. SMEs can apply for up to £1m from The Energy Entrepreneurs Fund, which can then be used to leverage further funds from private sector investors. A panel of investors will provide advice to DECC on picking the companies to support, and those who are successful will also get support from experts on how to bring their products to market. Details of the application process will be available by the summer.
Ed Davey also announced that DECC will shortly launch a £3 million competition, in partnership with the Technology Strategy Board to assess the performance of advanced heat storage technologies suitable for integration with domestic heating systems. This is to help to smooth out the peak electricity demand, using low carbon heat storage technology.
It's great to see that the Government understands the important role entrepreneurs play in the low carbon economy and is providing more financial support. However, there has been some criticism of the number of different funds available, making it difficult for companies to keep up with the myriad of support available.
To counteract this, the Government has also just launched the Low Carbon Funding Landscape Navigator website. Developed by the Energy Generation & Supply Knowledge Transfer Network, users can search for the latest funding opportunities in the low carbon area and get help in finding the right partners to build collaborations for specific calls.
If you are a budding eco-entrepreneur, you can also check out some great articles and advice on our Entrepreneur blog.
By Helen Craig. Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability at Virgin. Tweets @helcraig
