Widely available grant for energy efficiency launched

The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources has announced a new grant opportunity that will be available to SME food and beverage manufacturers under its Energy Efficient Communities Program.

The program is unusually broad and should apply to every SME in the field looking to improve energy efficiency and, while the dollar amount is small, there are basically no hurdles to jump and no strings attached.

Eligible small and medium food and beverage manufacturing businesses will be able to apply for grants between $10,000 and $25,000 for projects that improve energy efficiency.

Grants will be paid upfront with no co-contribution requirement.

Grants will be awarded to eligible applicants on a first come, first served basis until the state or territory funding allocation is reached.

Applications will open on 12 January 2022 and close on 18 February 2022, but may close earlier if state or territory funding limits are exhausted.

According to the department: “Now is the time for eligible manufacturers to get organised so they can be ready to apply as soon as applications open.

“Grant Guidelines including eligibility and application requirements are now available on business.gov.au.”

Some examples of eligible programs are:

• Install sub meters or sensors to monitor energy intensive processes
• Recover heat from steam systems or refrigeration equipment to reduce your heating energy requirements
• Replace existing refrigeration equipment with more efficient equipment
• Replace a gas-fired boiler or drier with a heat pump
• Reconfigure processes to reduce or eliminate the use of steam or compressed air
• Install variable speed drives on pumps, fans or other motors
• Install power factor correction
• And replace equipment powered by compressed air with electrically-powered equipment.

Picture: SMC Corporation provides a service to assist companies reduce compressed air usage

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