CFAs: Agrifood and Retail SMEs – Renewable Energy Communities

Deadline Date: February 20, 2025

The European Union is inviting proposals to support the creation of local/regional renewable energy communities (RECs) across the EU integrating local Agri-food and Retail SMEs.

The creation of these RECs will contribute to reducing and stabilising the energy costs of their SME members. Support will be given by providing advisory and consulting services that facilitate the creation of RECs but may not be available to SMEs in the agri-food and retail sectors. This could be due to insufficient regional consulting / advisory capacity, or because of inaccessible prices for small companies.

To achieve these objectives, consortia selected through this call for proposals shall themselves organise one or more calls for expressions of interest for third party support. These calls shall offer legal and technical advisory and consulting services in order to support projects aimed at establishing RECs with agri-food and retail SMEs. These services shall be provided directly by the members of the consortium and/or through a voucher system for more specific local services.

Themes and Priorities

• This call for proposals covers the following themes:
  • Increasing the use of renewable energy sources
  • Reducing the exposure of agri-food and retail SMEs to high energy costs
  • Reducing emissions in the agri-food and retail sectors
  • Supporting the establishment of renewable energy communities including agrifood and retail SMEs
• Projects funded under this call will be expected to:
  • Launch calls for expressions of interest for third party support
  • Contact relevant agri-food and/or retail SMEs in order to raise awareness of the opportunities under this action
  • Provide expertise and advisory services on renewable energy to local agrifood and retail SMEs interested in applying for third party support
  • Provide advice on how to set up a renewable energy community in terms of legal, technical and practical requirements, including financial and business aspects and engage with municipalities/local authorities/regional authorities in order to establish cooperation to provide the local support required by REC projects.
  • Monitor and demonstrate the overall impact of the individual projects

Funding Information

• Project budgets (requested grant amount) are expected to be up to EUR

1.000.000 per project. This does however not preclude the submission/selection of proposals requesting other amounts. The grant awarded may be lower than the amount requested.

• Projects are normally expected to last for 24 months (extensions are possible, only if duly justified and through an amendment of the Grant agreement).

Eligibility Criteria

• In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
  • be legal entities (public or private bodies)
  • be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
    • non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries)
• Typically eligible applicants can be:
  • Enterprise Europe Network host organisations, umbrella organisations specialising in renewable energy communities, specialised consultancy/advisory organisations, organisations representing local authorities and other organisations with competencies relevant for this call for proposals.
  • Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register — before submitting the proposal — and will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, they will be requested to upload documents showing legal status and origin.
  • Other entities may participate in other consortium roles, such as associated partners, subcontractors, third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc.

For more information, visit European Union.