Ymestyn renewable energy grant
Top-up grants for Welsh public bodies and community energy enterprises installing locally owned renewable electricity projects with payback longer than ten years.
Tato příležitost je nyní dostupná v angličtině.
Ymestyn supports renewable electricity projects ready to build, including solar roofs and canopies, ground-mounted solar, wind and hydropower. Batteries qualify when installed with renewable generation on the customer's side of the electricity meter. Projects can supply a site, send electricity to the grid or supply a Welsh customer through a private electricity connection.
The grant fills part of the gap between a project's simple payback and ten years. Simple payback measures how long the project takes to recover its investment from its financial benefits. Ymestyn assesses investment costs, electricity use and sales, tariffs and running costs. For example, the guidance awards a project with 12.5-year payback 2.5 ÷ 12.5 = 20% of capital costs. The maximum is 40% of eligible capital costs. Grants normally start at 10%, although large projects may be considered below that threshold when 10% represents a significant amount. Assessment is site by site; contingency costs are excluded from the payback calculation.
Installation costs, enabling civil works and grid connections can qualify. Internal salaried staff, recoverable VAT and operation or maintenance costs cannot be claimed, including maintenance paid upfront for several years. The programme expects all VAT to be recovered; applicants must manage the cash flow if VAT recovery falls in the following financial year.
Eligibility
- Applicants must be Welsh public sector organisations or community energy enterprises. Projects developed by, or jointly with, commercial enterprises are excluded.
- A community energy enterprise must be community led, work for public benefit on a nonprofit or social enterprise basis, and reinvest surplus in the community. Typical legal forms include Community Benefit Societies, Cooperative Societies, Community Interest Companies, charities or their wholly owned subsidiaries, and Companies Limited by Guarantee. Governing documents must commit to community benefit, democratic governance and responsible financial management.
- The project must have simple payback longer than ten years. The fund expects ambitious features such as solar canopies, batteries, offsite private electricity connections, hydro or wind, or grid-connected renewables. Other renewable projects may be considered with justification in the application.
- Standalone batteries and renewable heat, including renewable combined heat and power, are excluded. An already funded project needs evidence that this grant adds something beyond the funded work.
- All project spending and completion must take place by 30 November 2026, with the project commissioned. A distinct phase of a larger project can qualify if it is commissioned and producing electricity by then.
- Applicants must support their financial information with energy modelling of the share used on site. Assessment checks reasonable costs and readiness to finish, including design, planning permission or confirmed permitted development, procurement, grid connection and sustainable drainage approval where required.
How to apply
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- The published intake has closed.
- Project spending and commissioning must finish by 30 November 2026.
The published 2025–26 application window has closed. For that intake, applicants completed the official Excel form and emailed it, with supporting evidence, to Ymestyn.grant@energyservice.wales. Each form covered up to 15 sites, with at most two applications per organisation. All relevant sections and supporting information were required; evidence included designs, planning and drainage status, grid connection status, quotations and tariffs where applicable. Clarification meetings could be required.
Public bodies also seeking a Wales Funding Programme loan submitted separate grant and loan forms concurrently, copying each programme into the other's submission. The guidance recommends calculating the Ymestyn grant first, then the remaining loan requirement. The programmes may calculate payback differently, particularly for projects with high income from selling electricity. Those projects are encouraged to apply for consideration even if they do not meet the Wales Funding Programme's usual payback and carbon criteria; this does not guarantee loan approval. The projects seeking both forms of funding must match; additional sites qualifying only for the loan can go in a second loan application. Loan applications went to wales@salixfinance.co.uk.
Successful applicants receive an award notification followed by a Grant Offer Letter. An appropriately senior person must sign the letter within ten days of receipt and provide bank details. Spending can begin from the initial award notification. The Energy Service requires proof of quotation and contractor appointment before payment, progress reports or meetings, and email notification of material changes to scope, timing or grant value. Grantees must cooperate with interviews, surveys, case studies and reasonable requests to share project learning, performance information, site visits and photographs.
Funds are claimed in arrears as costs are incurred, normally in one claim or up to three agreed payments for complex projects. Claims must follow Energy Service standards and include PDF invoices covering all project capital costs. Evidence that invoices have been paid must accompany the claim or be supplied within four weeks of receiving funding.