Grousemount Wind Farm will manage a community fund, valued at in excess of €150,000 per annum, which will be made available annually for the 25 year operational lifetime of the wind farm. The first round of funding will be made available when the construction phase ends and the wind farm begins to generate and supply electricity. This is expected in the second half of 2019. More information related the fund will be available closer to the time.
Within six to 12 months from the time the wind farm starts producing electricity and will run for the lifetime of the wind farm (usually 20 to 25 years).
We utilise the services of an independent company (termed: Grant Making Organisation, or GMO) to oversee the administration of the fund from application review to award. South, and East Area Development Partnership CLG (SECAD) will act as the GMO from 2019 through 2021.
The fund is available to community and voluntary organisations for projects which are based within the ‘Area of Benefit (AOB)’ of Grousemount Wind Farm. These include, but are not limited to;
We support projects which focus on the following themes;
We cannot support:
The ‘Area of Benefit’ or AOB is a radius of up to 10km around a wind farm, which is set to ensure that communities directly neighbouring our wind farms benefit most from the funds. As such, applications from within the AOB will receive priority over all others.
In order for an application from outside the AOB to be considered for funding it must demonstrate the benefit provided to the communities within the AOB.
Once a year, the Grant Making Organisations (GMOs) will open each fund in order to accept applications. When open, a link to the relevant website will be added above as well as being promoted in local media. Each potential applicant will be required to;
While the fund has an expected value of in excess €150,000 per annum we expect individual award values to be between €10,000 and €20,000. However, these suggested award value are neither a minimum nor a maximum, rather an indication of the scale of resources available annually versus expected demand. Awards may exceed the above suggested values if a project is identified as being of significant strategic benefit to the community.