Frontier Carbon Funding Basics Guidebook

Nicola Mares • 13 March 2020
Funding Basics Guidebook for Community Energy Projects is an ARENA supported initiative by Frontier Carbon, with support from the Coalition for Community Energy members
Embark and Community Power Agency.

Click here to download a pdf of the entire Guidebook.Funding Basics Guidebook

Community Energy (CE) projects are starting to gain momentum in Australia. The stakeholder engagement to develop this toolkit revealed that one of the areas that can improve the take up of CE projects is for CE project developers to understand the options for funding their CE
project and the necessary steps for achieving successful funding.

The term ‘funding’ in the context of the toolkit relates to the raising of both equity investment and debt finance as well as donations, in-kind contributions and grants to the point of successful final funding prior to construction and commissioning.

This Funding Basics Guidebook aims to improve financial literacy and provide guidance for CE project developers to improve their chances of successfully funding projects.

Through each of the project development phases the guidebook provides the following:

  • An overview of key funding options available
  • The potential merits, limitations and drawbacks associated with these options
  • The role of grants, donations and in-kind (volunteer) support
  • Tips for gaining successful funding outcomes.