Member Article

£11 million SME funding for localised energy research

The Government has launched an £11 million funding competition for SMEs who can bring energy generation and distribution down to a local level.

Jointly funded by the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the collaborative R&D competition aims to bring energy generation and storage down to clusters of buildings and districts.

The competition, which opens on January 20, requires businesses to partner with academic institutions.

CEO of the Technology Strategy Board, Iain Gray said: “The development of localised energy systems is an important part of what will be a complex mix of technologies for generating, transmitting, distributing and storing energy, as we continue the transition to a low carbon economy in the coming decades.

“This funding competition is therefore critical, not only in developing the individual technologies, but also in developing solutions to how technologies are integrated to deliver robust, flexible and cost-effective systems.”

Professor David Delpy, EPSRC’s chief executive, added: “This competition builds on the strong research base we have helped to develop in energy. It will draw in expertise from across disciplines and gives our leading academics the chance to engage across a number of different industry sectors.

“The research community is addressing the challenges of energy use and this competition provides an opportunity for that research to be drawn through to cross-cutting innovations that will cut costs, emissions and improve efficiency.”

More information on the competition is available here.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .