Energy-Saving Grants for SME Food and Beverage Manufacturers

Update 23 February 2022: Please note this grant program is extended until 3 March 2022 for Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia businesses that meet the criteria. See business.gov.au for more information.

Are you in the food and beverage manufacturing business? Does your business have 1-199 employees and is wanting to become more energy efficient? Right now, the government is providing full funding up to $25000 to help small-and-medium enterprises in the food and beverage manufacturing sector to improve their energy efficiency and reduce their electricity bill.

The Energy Efficient Communities (EEC) Grants for Food and Beverage Manufacturers is aimed to support small and medium sized food and beverage manufacturing enterprises to save energy by:

• Replacing existing equipment with more energy efficient equipment
• Installing or replacing components to help existing systems run more efficiently.
• Carrying out energy audits
• Monitoring and optimising energy use and emissions
• Increase knowledge of energy efficiency practices, and
• Positioning small and medium sized enterprises to adopt future technological advancement in energy consumption

Projects and activities hat are eligible for funding covers a vast range of energy efficiency products and services, and can be a combination of any of the eligible activities. This includes installing a Power Factor Correction Unit.

Why You Should Consider Installing a Power Factor Correction Unit?

Most types of industrial machinery, refrigeration units, air-conditioning units and fluorescent lights need an additional amount of power to maintain the magnetic field that starts them up and keeps them running. This is referred to as ‘reactive’ power because although it keeps equipment running, it isn’t actually doing the work, and much of it is considered wasted energy.

A Power Factor Correction (PFC) unit is a highly specialised equipment that is specifically designed and customised to your business’ energy profile to compensate the ‘reactive’ power, in order to improve your site’s Power Factor. A PFC unit will also rectify any overloading issues you have and benefit from the opportunity to expand your plant without upgrading your transformer or supply equipment. Ultimately, your business will be more energy efficient, and you will start to see savings in your electricity bill.

One of the most common questions we received is how long is the return-on-investment after installing a Power Factor Correction. It is not uncommon for the installation costs of a properly designed Power Factor Correction Unit to be recovered in six to 24 months after installation. If your EEC grant application is approved, the cost of your Power Factor Correction installation will be fully funded by the government up to $25,000. This means your return-on-investment will be sooner, if not immediately!

The Energy Efficient Communities (EEC) Grant is open until 18 February 2022, 5pm. Apply or find out more information here. As part of the grant application, you will be required to nominate the funding amount, which is your project cost. So, if you are keen to find out more about Power Factor Correction and get a quote to submit with your application, give our team a call or send us a message!

Since 1989, Quality Energy has been in the business of helping other businesses improve energy efficiency and reduce their energy cost. We do that by providing specialist Power Quality management solutions for companies across every industry. We are one of the few specialists who manufacture our own Power Quality systems here in Australia. This means we can custom-design, build, install and maintain our Power Factor Correction units and systems to the highest standards, according to your energy-use profile and sector.