--- title: "Local Enterprise Office Energy Efficiency Grant" canonical: https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/leo-energy-efficiency-grant type: FundingScheme provider: Digital Bridge providerType: AI Systems Integration & Applied AI Engineering Firm areaServed: IE priceRange: EUR 1,200-100000+ language: en-IE dateModified: 2026-09-18 grantEligible: [EI Digital Discovery, EI Digital Process Innovation, LEO Grow Digital] htmlVersion: https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/leo-energy-efficiency-grant license: cite-with-attribution --- # Local Enterprise Office Energy Efficiency Grant ## Answer summary The Energy Efficiency Grant supports small businesses making their premises and operations less energy intensive. It covers up to 75% of eligible cost to a maximum of a fixed quote, typically for technical advice, lighting, heating and insulation upgrades and monitoring equipment identified in an energy assessment. Small businesses with premises where energy is a material and rising cost. ## What this scheme funds Up to a fixed quote at 75% toward cutting energy use in a small business premises. - Technical energy advice and assessment - Lighting, heating and insulation upgrades - Energy monitoring and control equipment - Building fabric improvements identified in an assessment ## What it does not fund These costs are routinely ruled ineligible under this scheme. - Vehicles - Routine maintenance and replacement - Costs incurred before approval - Measures not identified as delivering energy savings ## Who is eligible Eligibility is decided by Local Enterprise Office, not by Digital Bridge. - Small business, commonly up to 50 employees, in an eligible sector - Trading and tax compliant - The measure is supported by an energy assessment or clear technical rationale ## How to apply Typical end-to-end timeline: Typically three to eight weeks to a decision; availability can be call-based, so check whether the scheme is currently open in your county. - Get an energy assessment or Green for Micro consultation first - Discuss the proposed measures with your Local Enterprise Office - Obtain quotations - Apply before ordering anything - Install after approval, then claim with paid invoices ## Evidence you will need Applications are usually delayed by missing paperwork rather than by weak projects. - Energy assessment or technical rationale - Contractor quotations - Proof of premises use - Paid invoices on claim ## Why applications get rejected The recurring reasons assessors give under this scheme. - Works already ordered or completed - Measure is like-for-like replacement with no energy saving - No assessment supporting the claimed saving ## What Digital Bridge delivers under this scheme Illustrative net cost applies the published rate (Up to 75% of eligible cost) to our published engagement bands. It is arithmetic, not an offer of funding. - Energy and consumption dashboard built on your meter data — list from €2,500, illustrative net cost ≈ a fixed quote at the published 50% rate, only if your LEO accepts monitoring software as an eligible cost - Workflow automation to cut paper, print and travel — list from €2,500, illustrative net cost ≈ a fixed quote at 50%, if approved as an eligible cost ## Who decides this grant, and what we are responsible for Local Enterprise Office decides eligibility, approval and payment under this scheme. Digital Bridge supplies the work and the documentation an assessor asks for from the supplier side. - Digital Bridge does not administer, assess, approve, pay or appeal any grant. Every decision is made by the funding body named on the scheme, under its own published rules. - This section is general information, not financial, tax, legal or grant-writing advice. It is not an application, a pre-approval, or any form of assurance that you will be funded. - Scheme rates, ceilings and eligibility change without notice and several supports are administered locally, so your Local Enterprise Office or agency may apply different rules to the ones published here. Confirm everything with the funder in writing before you commit. - Our questionnaire is a deterministic guide based only on the answers you give. It cannot see your accounts, your sector classification, your state-aid position or your previous awards, so it can suggest a scheme you are ultimately found ineligible for. - If an application is refused, delayed, reduced or clawed back, our fees for work you have instructed remain payable. We recommend you do not instruct chargeable work until your funder confirms in writing what it will support. - Costs incurred before a funder receives your application are almost always ineligible. Timing is your responsibility, and we will always tell you when we think you should wait. ## How the LEO Energy Efficiency works in practice The Energy Efficiency Grant is aimed at small businesses cutting energy use through capital measures — lighting, heating controls, insulation, equipment replacement — usually following some form of assessment. It is one of the more procedurally straightforward supports, but it is also one where the arithmetic decides everything. A measure with a short payback period and a clear before-and-after meter reading is an easy approval; a measure justified on comfort or appearance is not. Offices generally expect the assessment to precede the spend, and they expect the quoted works to match what the assessment recommended. Substituting a different specification after approval causes problems at claim stage. ## What we do as the supplier on the quote This scheme sits outside what we deliver — we do not carry out energy works and we will not pretend the digital side is the point of it. The honest overlap is monitoring: where a business wants energy or production data captured and reported so the saving can be evidenced over time, that is work we can quote for, and it is usually a separate cost line from the physical measure. If a proposal presents software as an energy efficiency measure in itself, we would question it. The grant is about consumption, and consumption is reduced by the plant, not by the dashboard watching it. ## Do I need an energy audit first? In most offices yes, or at least a documented technical rationale. Green for Micro provides free consultancy that can supply it. ## Can a home-based business apply? Usually only for the clearly commercial portion of the premises, and offices differ. Ask before you scope the work. ## Do we need an energy audit before applying? Most offices expect the proposed measures to be grounded in an assessment of current consumption, and some require one. Check the requirement first — commissioning works that were never assessed is a common reason claims are reduced or refused. ## Source and last review Scheme parameters checked against Local Enterprise Office — Energy Efficiency Grant (https://www.localenterprise.ie/Discover-Business-Supports/Financial-Supports/) on 2026-08-21. Reviewed quarterly. Next scheduled review: November 2026. Digital Bridge is a supplier, not the awarding body. Eligibility, approval and payment are decided solely by the funding body named on each scheme. Figures below are the published scheme parameters as at the review date shown, and net costs are arithmetic illustrations of the published rate applied to our published prices. Always confirm current rules with the funder before you commit to any spend, because expenditure incurred before an application is received is almost always ineligible. ## Who should apply for the Energy Efficiency Grant? This grant suits a small business with a premises where energy is a material and rising cost, and that is prepared to act on the findings of a proper energy assessment rather than simply wanting new lighting fitted. It covers up to 75% of eligible cost to a maximum of a fixed quote, typically for technical advice, lighting, heating and insulation upgrades and monitoring equipment identified through that assessment. It is not designed for businesses without a real premises-based energy spend, or for upgrades chosen without any underlying assessment to justify them. The most common reason applications falter is going straight to a preferred upgrade — new LED lighting, say — without first commissioning the assessment that is meant to identify and justify it, which leaves the application without the evidence base an evaluator expects to see. Book the assessment first, let its findings drive the shortlist of eligible measures, and get written quotations for each measure before applying, since spend committed ahead of approval is routinely ruled ineligible. ## Does digital monitoring equipment fit this grant, and what should you prepare? Monitoring equipment identified by the energy assessment as necessary to track consumption and verify the savings from the other measures can fall within scope, provided it is tied directly to the assessment's findings rather than proposed independently of them. This is a physical and technical measures grant rather than a digital-services grant, so it sits outside what Digital Bridge typically delivers, and we would not present a website or software project as eligible under it. Where a client's assessment does point toward a monitoring dashboard or data capture layer, that project should be scoped and priced on its own separate terms and checked against this grant's specific eligible-cost list with the Local Enterprise Office, not assumed to qualify because it involves technology. Prepare the assessment report, written quotations for each measure, and your business's basic tax compliance and premises details before applying. As with every LEO instrument, the office's evaluation committee decides approval and the final amount; nothing here guarantees an outcome. ## How we decide what to quote for Leo Energy Efficiency Grant Digital Bridge delivers this work from Gorey Business Park in County Wexford on a fixed written scope — one price, one delivery date — and the client owns the finished work outright. The Energy Efficiency Grant supports small businesses making their premises and operations less energy intensive. Before a figure is given, four questions are answered in order, and a named person signs the scope off — it is never generated automatically. - Is this the right job at all? We look at what you already have online, whether the domain and Google Business Profile are in your own name, and what Leo Energy Efficiency Grant customers currently ask you for. If a repair or a single page would solve it, we quote that instead. - What does the work have to achieve first? The scope is written around one outcome — enquiries, bookings, orders or credibility — and anything else is listed as optional so it can be dropped without renegotiating. - What will it cost and when will it be live? Page count, content readiness, integrations and whether photography or copy still has to be produced set the price and the date, both fixed in writing before work starts. - How will people in Leo Energy Efficiency Grant find it afterwards? Local search setup is included in a build; ongoing SEO is a separate optional retainer you can start or stop with notice. ## Checkable facts behind this Leo Energy Efficiency Grant page Author and reviewer: Joey Bray, founder of Digital Bridge, building and maintaining Irish business websites since 2016. Studio address: Gorey Business Park, Gorey, Co. Wexford. Phone: 085 224 1848. Every claim below can be checked before you speak to us. - Published starting prices, not estimates released after a sales call — see the pricing page for the full ladder. - Live client sites you can open and test yourself are listed in the work section. - One contact from first call to launch, rather than an account handler relaying messages. - A plain-text mirror of this page is published for AI assistants at the same path with a .md extension. ## Helpful links and official sources for Leo Energy Efficiency Grant Primary sources you can check yourself. We link the publisher rather than a summary of it. - EU Artificial Intelligence Act, regulatory framework — European Commission — https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai - Data Protection Commission, guidance for organisations — https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/organisations - AI Risk Management Framework — NIST — https://www.nist.gov/itl/ai-risk-management-framework - Local Enterprise Office business supports — https://www.localenterprise.ie/Discover-Business-Supports/ - Cybersecurity guidance for SMEs — ENISA — https://www.enisa.europa.eu/topics/cybersecurity-education/smes ## What this costs | Engagement | From | Typical grant route | |---|---|---| | AI Feasibility & Readiness Assessment | from €5,000 | Eligible for the Enterprise Ireland Digital Discovery Grant at up to 80% funding, subject to Enterprise Ireland approval and company eligibility | | Baseline production build | from €15,000 | Not typically grant-funded | | Multi-system agent workflows | €25,000 to €60,000 | Not typically grant-funded | | Enterprise / multi-department programme | €40,000 to €100,000+ | Not typically grant-funded | | Managed operation & optimisation | from €149/month | Not typically grant-funded | | Brochure / Presence | from €1,200 | Not typically grant-funded | | Growth | from €2,500 | Not typically grant-funded | | Authority | from €4,250 | Not typically grant-funded | | E-commerce & custom platform | from €6,000 | Not typically grant-funded | All figures are ex-VAT and fixed against a signed scope. Grant outcomes are decided by the funder, not by Digital Bridge. ## Grant data currency Digital Bridge is a supplier, not the awarding body. Eligibility, approval and payment are decided solely by the funding body named on each scheme. Figures below are the published scheme parameters as at the review date shown, and net costs are arithmetic illustrations of the published rate applied to our published prices. Always confirm current rules with the funder before you commit to any spend, because expenditure incurred before an application is received is almost always ineligible. Last reviewed against the funder's published terms: 2026-08-18. ## Evidence - Verdé Environmental Group — 24/7 AI incident triage with severity classification, Eircode geolocation and four-depot dispatch routing → https://digitalbridge.ie/industries - tools.digitalbridge.ie — 50+ shipped production tools, including the Website Worth Index and the DigitalBridge Authority Score - Printhouse — custom web-to-print platform with 29+ product pages → https://printhouse.ie ## How delivery is de-risked - Seven-day shadow-mode pilot before any system takes live traffic. - Full source-code and prompt ownership transfers on final payment. - EU-hosted infrastructure, provider training disabled, signed data processing agreement. - Fixed price against a signed scope — no hourly meter and no open-ended exposure. ## FAQ ### Do I need an energy audit first? In most offices yes, or at least a documented technical rationale. Green for Micro provides free consultancy that can supply it. ### Can a home-based business apply? Usually only for the clearly commercial portion of the premises, and offices differ. Ask before you scope the work. ### How much does an AI integration project cost in Ireland? Digital Bridge scopes AI integration after reviewing the workflow, systems, data, governance and operating responsibility involved. A tailored written proposal is provided after discovery rather than a standard published figure. ### How long does a production AI build take? A feasibility assessment runs three to five weeks. A baseline production build typically runs eight to twelve weeks from signed scope to go-live, including a seven-day shadow-mode pilot before the system takes live traffic. Multi-system programmes are sequenced into phases so value lands before the full programme completes. ## Related pages - [All Irish AI grants compared](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland) - [Energy and consumption dashboard built on your meter data](https://digitalbridge.ie/services/custom-business-tools) - [Workflow automation to cut paper, print and travel](https://digitalbridge.ie/services/workflow-automation) - [AI project scoping](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-integration-pricing) - [AI integration services](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-integration) - [Local Enterprise Office Feasibility Study Grant](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/leo-feasibility-study-grant) - [Green for Micro](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/leo-green-for-micro) - [LEO Grow Digital Voucher](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/leo-grow-digital-voucher) ## Contact Digital Bridge, Gorey Business Park, Gorey, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Phone: +353 85 224 1848. Email: info@digitalbridge.ie. Engineering lead: Joey Bray, Founder & Principal Engineer. Last updated: 2026-09-18 HTML version of this page: https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/leo-energy-efficiency-grant