Businesses in energy intensive sectors will be able to benefit from £40mn in funding to help them cut carbon emissions and reduce energy bills.
On 7 February, the government announced businesses in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, steel, paper, and food and drink can apply for grants worth up to £14mn through its Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, which is set to total £289mn in funding through to 2024. It added that the second competition window has seen the minimum grant lowered to £100,000 for deployment projects, enabling greater flexibility for smaller businesses to receive funding.
Potential projects are spread across the East and West Midlands, North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, with the grants enabling businesses to use new technologies that can improve the efficiency of industrial processes and reduce energy demand. This includes food and drink carrying out studies that explore replacing natural gas with hydrogen, factories installing electric motors and heat pumps to replace gas fired boilers and steam turbines, and manufacturers using heat recovery technology to recycle waste and generate renewable electricity.
