Ontario’s Community Energy Partnership Program is now accepting applications and providing lots of information for how to get money for community power projects around the province. The program is being run by the Community Power Fund in collaboration with Deloitte.
Some of the details
Community biogas projects are eligible to receive $75-200,000 in order to fund 90% of pre-project costs like:
- business cases
- project management
- feasibility studies
- legal costs, and
- securing suppliers, among other things
Funds are disbursed on a milestone basis, which is a good way to ensure that projects keep moving forward and that good money isn’t thrown away on bad projects. The exact funding gap that this program is aiming to fill starts after the pre-feasibility stage and ends with the receipt of a notice to proceed from the Ontario Power Authority.
An intentionally vague term
Similar to the Feed-in Tariff program, ‘community’ is an intentionally vague term – meaning any individual, non-profit corporation, renewable energy co-op or registered charity, can apply. Partnerships are also allowed with private corporations, but the funding received from the CEPP can only cover the community’s portion of the costs, not all of them.
With these funds in hand, the returns being offered by the Feed-in Tariff program, and the low interest loans available from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp (only until March 2011!) people around the province are able to directly support their farmers and food producers, make a profit and make a positive impact on the environment.
This seems like an incredible opportunity not only for municipalities, but also for the motivated people that are a part of the many Transition Towns sprouting up around Ontario – incorporated non-profits that among other things are passionate about food sustainability issues and healthy agriculture.
The impetus for growth
I’ve been eagerly awaiting the launch of this program; it will allow the community sector to participate in biogas development around Ontario on the same scale that private developers already are – these up-front costs are often enough to discourage the development of community-power projects.
Talk to the people in your community; see if they’re interested in growing local value and creating jobs, with biogas. ReGenerate can help you make it happen, talk to me to find out how.
