News

We are delighted to announce that all 7 local authorities in the Dublin and Mid-East region are now actively participating in SEAI’s Sustainable Energy Communities (SEC) Programme as lead applicants for the programme’s energy master plan (EMP) process.

The SEC initiative is a funding and support programme, which helps communities to work together to become energy-smart and more sustainable, and SECs are provided with a County mentor to guide them through the three stages of the programme, ‘Learn’, ‘Plan’ and ‘Do’.

At the 'Plan' stage, SECs can apply for funding to carry out an energy master plan for their community. Usually, the SEC would have to procure an energy consultant and pay the full invoice upfront and receive the monies back at a later date from SEAI once its EMP grant paperwork is approved, which can become a barrier to some SECs who may not have access to a cashflow of this size.

To help with this stage, Codema set up a partnership with all the local authorities in Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow, who can now act as the lead applicant when an SEC is applying for their energy master plan funding. This means that the local authority will have an energy consultant or consultants in place, and that they will pay these consultants and then apply for the EMP grant from SEAI themselves, thus helping SECs who may not have access to a group cash source. While not all SECs will submit an energy master plan application with their local authority as lead applicant, this partnership will help to reduce any financial and administrative burden for SECs who follow this route.

To find out more about the SEC programme in the Dublin and Mid-East region, visit www.codema.ie/sec.