WECA Solar Panel Grant

The WECA solar panel grant is designed to encourage small and medium enterprises and registered charities to install solar panels on their larger commercial and industrial roofs such as factories, warehouses, and larger offices. The resulting clean energy generation will help to cut your greenhouse gas emissions and reduce your business energy costs significantly.

The solar PV grant is available on a first come, first served basis. A total of £500,000 will be made available for this scheme. Applications are assessed on their own merit against set criteria and awards are made on a rolling basis throughout the grant window which ends on Friday 3rd May 2024.

How much does the grant offer?

You can apply for a grant of up to 30% towards eligible capital costs of purchase and installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. The minimum grant request is £15,000 and maximum is £50,000. You will need to provide at least 70% match funding towards the project.

This is a grant and does not need to be repaid. However, the WECA solar panel grant is paid on defrayal, meaning if you are successful in securing the grant, you must purchase and complete your project before claiming the funding you have been awarded. You should aim to do this within a 6 month claim window, although this can be extended in exceptional circumstances.

Eligible businesses

The WECA Solar PV Grant is available for SMEs in the Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol or South Gloucestershire local authority area. If you match the following criteria you are likely to gain funding:

• Have a trading address in the Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol or South Gloucestershire local authority area
• Be able to provide suitable match funding for your project
• Be a legal entity such as a limited company, limited liability partnership, co-operative or registered charity
• Be a small or medium sized enterprise (SME), this means you must not employ more than 249 people
• Have had an independent energy or carbon assessment done that recommends the project you are applying for grant for.

The following organisations are not eligible to apply for this grant

• Sole traders, partnerships and businesses using cash-based accounting
• Community groups, sports clubs, village halls and similar entities unless you are a registered charity or applying through a trading arm
• GPs, dentists, opticians, schools, colleges and similar
• Private domestic landlord businesses, home-based businesses, guest houses, care homes and similar
• Businesses in financial difficulty, such as collective insolvency.

Independent energy or carbon assessment

It is worth noting that your grant application must be supported by an independent carbon assessment of your business. If you don’t have one already, WECA will carry out a Carbon Survey for free. Please see WECA carbon survey for more information.

What can I use the WECA Solar Panel Grant for?

You can use a WECA Solar PV Grant for the installation of commercial solar PV panels on the roof of your premises or as solar carports on existing parking facilities. The generation capacity of your solar PV system must be at least 50kWp.

Eligible costs include the supply and installation of solar panels, inverters, cabling, connections, meters and controls. You may not use grant to install new energy storage such as batteries, hot water tanks, electric vehicle charge points or electric vehicles, but may use the grant to connect into existing energy storage or infrastructure that you already have to maximise onsite usage.

Your application must be supported by independent advice and verification that installing solar panels is a worthwhile action to take. The WECA Carbon Surveys provide this support free of charge, but you can also use a third-party consultant or assessor such as Balanced Energy if you wish.

In line with industry best practice, if significant electricity reduction actions are identified within your business, you may be required to take actions to address these first to ensure that solar electricity is used efficiently.

WECA will assess your application against their criteria for value-for-money, deliverability and financial viability, with the best scoring projects being awarded the grant.

Next steps

For more information regarding solar panels or the WECA Solar Panel Grant, please fill out the form below and one of our team will get in touch asap.