BEIS publish Green Home Finance Innovation Fund competition

Funded by the Energy Innovation Programme, the Green Home Finance Innovation Fund (GHFIF) competition is an important early step in making building fabric energy efficiency measures attractive to all consumers. It supports: the Clean Growth Strategy aspiration to upgrade all homes to EPC Band C, where cost effective, affordable and practical, by 2035 the Buildings Mission ambition to at least halve the energy use of new buildings by 2030 and to halve the cost of renovating existing buildings to a similar standard one of the Green Finance Taskforce recommendations to take a more activist approach to stimulate innovation in green finance products and servicesThe competition:The competition will make available approximately £4.63 million for a limited number of projects which develop innovative green mortgage and other lending products, targeting any consumers that would not get support under government schemes.Successful bids must demonstrate: how the financial product incentivises homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of existing properties or how it reinforces a market relationship between energy efficient properties and property valueSuccessful projects are likely to be owner-occupier related as there are other measures to encourage improvements in the private rental sector, but we won’t rule out products aimed at landlords, as long as they go beyond the energy efficiency measures required in current legislation.Eligibility and other details the fund is open to financial institutions and mortgage lenders with a retail presence, for example banks, building societies or consumer finance organisations BEIS encourage partnerships with other organisations, such as the retrofit supply chain, energy suppliers and smart data/analytics companies, that could deliver energy assessments and retrofit BEIS will have a direct relationship with only one party in any consortium, who will be responsible for project delivery the competition is UK wide grant proposals should not exceed £1.8 million per project, and projects must demonstrate leverage of private sector funding BEIS hope to fund a mixed portfolio of projects to ensure a spread of different green home finance approachesKey deadlines: to ask clarification questions: 5pm on 9 September 2019 to submit expressions of interest: 5pm on 26 September 2019 to submit bids: 5pm on 14 October 2019 projects must complete by March 2021Find out more and download the relevant forms by clicking here.