Funding Opportunity – Low Carbon Economy Challenge (Champions Stream)
February 8, 2022
Maximum request: 40% of project costs up to $25M
Statement of Interest due: February 25
The Low Carbon Economy Challenge is part of the Low Carbon Economy Fund (LCEF). It leverages Canadian ingenuity to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and generate clean growth in support of Canada’s clean growth and climate action plans by providing approximately $500 million to a wide range of recipients.
To be considered eligible, a project must result in reductions in GHG emissions in 2030 and over the lifetime of the project.
These reductions must be:
- to sources of emissions controlled by the applicant or project partner (direct) and/or to grid electricity emissions (acquired)
- beyond what is required by existing regulations, standards, or codes and ongoing work by project proponents (incremental)
- directly and immediately the result of activities funded by the program.
Projects must also meet other eligibility criteria, as follows:
- capacity to make use of commercially available technology
- confirmation of project location
- production of electricity or fuel must be primarily for own use, within the applicant’s or identified partner’s operations (except for projects located in rural or remote communities or for district energy or industrial combined heat-and-power).
The following activity types within a project are ineligible regardless of whether they meet the other program criteria.
- Active transport (e.g. biking or pedestrian infrastructure)
- Construction of new buildings (wherein GHG emissions reductions are obtained relative to a hypothetical alternative new building)
- District energy systems for new constructions
- Electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure
- Enhancing carbon sinks (e.g., carbon sequestration in forests or soils)
- Fuel transportation infrastructure
- Light emitting diode (LED) lighting retrofits
- Public transit infrastructure and vehicles
- Purchase of new vehicles
- Reductions based solely on behavioural change
- Reductions based solely on products manufactured or sold by the applicant for market consumption (i.e. where GHG emissions reductions can only be realized upon purchase, installation and/or use of the product by an unidentified third party)
- Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) and ZEV infrastructure
Further information is available on the program’s website.