Success for Salix’s Second College Energy Fund

20th August 2015

Salix Finance has received applications for over £3m of interest-free loans for 32 new energy efficiency projects across 24 Colleges in England, predicted to save over £11m over the project’s lifetime.

In partnership with the EAUC and the Association of Colleges (AoC), Salix launched the second College Energy Fund for energy efficiency and carbon reduction projects in Further Education (FE) Colleges. It has seen 24 FE Colleges across England apply for projects ranging from £6,000 to £793,000 with a varied mix of technology types.

Applications for this round of funding have been diverse and technology types range from boiler and LED lighting upgrades to Combined Heat and Power installations and are predicted to create savings of over 55,000 tonnes of CO2 and £11m over the lifetime of the projects. The quality of the applications has been extremely high, with successful applicants providing clear savings calculations, internal business cases, cost evidence and supporting technical documents.

EAUC CEO Iain Patton said, ‘Saving the public purse £11 Million and increasing Member Colleges' energy efficiency is at the heart of what the EAUC is all about. Students learn not just from their teachers but from the behaviour and operations they see all around them at college. The EAUC partnership with Salix is positive and powerful on many fronts.”

In this round of funding, Salix also received eight repeat applications from colleges who were successfully awarded funding in the first round, as well as a host of applications from colleges that Salix have not yet had the opportunity to work with.

Lucinda Tyser, Programme Manager for Salix Finance, says, “It is great to see that in this second round of funding we have had participation by returning clients as well as the opportunity to build new relationships with FE Colleges that we have not had the chance to work with before. The success of this round of funding shows how energy efficiency is important to English Colleges as they look to reduce the cost of energy bills and reduce their carbon emissions.”

Since Salix first began working with FE colleges in 2008, it has funded over 1,800 different projects in more than 250 colleges. The total estimated savings for the further education sector is £105m and 666,000 tonnes of CO2.

Salix will be opening another round of funding at the end of September 2015. Further information will be advertised here.