If you own a farm or horticultural business, you could make savings by using energy, manure and water more efficiently.

If you have a farm in Yorkshire and Humber, you can apply for funding towards the purchase of equipment that will make both cost savings and be more environmentally friendly.

You can get funding for:

-    Heat capture units
-    Voltage optimistaion units
-    Heat exchange systems
-    Rainwater harvesting and water recycling systems. This includes fixed pumps, UV filtration systems, piping and storage tanks
-   Silage/slurry store rooves (fixed or floating), where they are part of a rainwater harvesting application
-    Manure management, including mechanical slurry seperator systems, trailing shoes, injestors and dribble bars
-    Any technical fees that installing any of this equipment might cost

You can apply for between £1,500 and £25,000 for up to 50% and 60% of the cost of the equipment.


How to apply

To begin your application today, or if you would like more information, please contact:

Vicky Wren
FREP Project Manager
vicky.wren@co2sense.co.uk
0113 237 8461

You can apply for funding now. The deadline for applications is Monday 3rd October 2011, at 12pm.

You can apply for funding if:
- You have a farm business in Yorkshire and Humber with two years of professionally prepared accounts
- You are applying for a sum that is not more than 25% of your turnover
- You claim Single Farm Payment or are a commerical pig, poultry or horticultural unit
- No more than 40% of energy or water generated from the equipment installed using funding is used to meet or offset domestic use

Changes to the funding for farms - May 2011
You can apply for funding for 2 new pieces of equipment. These are:

Voltage optimisation - deals with the discrepancy between supply voltage and the optimum voltage electricial equipment needs. By levelling this out, you can save money on electricity bills.

Floating slurry store covers - impermeable floating slurry store covers can be used to collect rainwater. If you would like to apply for a floating slurry store cover, it must be part of a wider rainwater harvesting project.

There are now some pieces of equipment that you can no longer apply for funding to purchase. This is because the government has brought in new incentives for these technologies to support their use. The equipments you can no longer get funding for are:

Renewable heat - this inculdes bioimass boilers, ground source heat pumps and solar thermal units. The imminent introduction of the Renewable Heat Incentive will mean that if you produce low carbon heat, you can get payments for the heat you produce. If you are interested in generating low carbon heat, please click here.

Renewable energy - this includes solar PV, hydro and wind turbines. This is in response to the introduction of the Feed in Tariffs (FIT), that give financial support to small scale (less than 5MW) low carbon energy generation. If you would like to know more about generating low carbon electricity, please click here.

 

What you will need to apply
You can find all of the details for how to apply, and what you will need, in the Guidance Notes. In general, however, along with your application form, you will need:

 

- One set of underlying accounts for the business
- Three quotes for the equipment purchased
- Calculations that demonstrate what the results of the investment will be
- Evidence that all necessary planning permissions or consents are in place
- Confirmation of the private match funding
- Complete standard calculations demonstrating what the results of the investment wil be. The templates for these are included in the application form.

The funding comes from the Rural Development Programme for England, jointly funded by Defra and the European Union. Please click here for more details.