SME Loan Scheme

Loans up to £100k are available to help you pay for energy and carbon-saving upgrades in your business. You could also receive a cashback grant of up to £30k.

An SME loan can be used to finance the installation of a range of eligible measures including:

• heating, ventilation, and air conditioning upgrades.
• renewable heat technologies such as installing an air source heat pump.
• improving insulation, draught-proofing, double or secondary glazing,
• installing LED lighting.
• installing solar thermal systems, wind turbines and biomass boilers.

The loan is available to Scottish businesses, not-for-profit organisations and charities that have been trading for at least 12 months and fall within the EU definition of a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME).

You must be less than 25% owned by one or more other enterprises and have a holding of less than 25% in any other enterprise.

The SME Loan Scheme is designed to help eligible businesses install new energy efficient systems, equipment or building fabric improvements. You will not be eligible if you have already completed or started work on your project.

If you are an SME and installing eligible equipment, you could receive a cashback grant of up to £30,000 for your business.

• 75% of eligible costs up to a maximum of £20,000 can be claimed for energy efficiency measures.
• 75% of eligible costs up to a maximum of £10,000 can also be claimed for a range of renewable heat measures (heat pumps, biomass boilers and solar thermal).

Once you have submitted a completed application, you’ll normally get a decision within 10 working days.

The cashback grant will be paid to you (along with the loan) when your project is completed and evidence has been provided, typically by a qualified advisor undertaking a site inspection.

The SME Loan Scheme has already provided Scottish businesses with over £55 million in loans for more than 1,500 projects.

Check out our case studies to see who is already benefitting.

“The loan was critical in allowing us to go ahead and install our biomass boiler. The support that we received was excellent and made the entire process from application to installation extremely straightforward.”  Sine Davis, West Highland Hotel

You’ll find lots of further information in our SME Loan Scheme FAQs.

To apply for funding from the SME Loan Scheme, you need a report from Business Energy Scotland that recommends the energy efficient systems, equipment and/or building fabric improvements that you would like to use the funding to install.

Business Energy Scotland’s reports are free and impartial and once you request support, it typically takes between 2-6 weeks to prepare your report, depending on the complexity of your requirements.

If you already have a suitable report from Business Energy Scotland. Please get in touch using our online form, or call us 0808 808 2268, and we will provide you with everything you need to make an application.