United Kingdom

Highlights in 2017

New clean energy innovation policies and/or strategies

In 2017, the UK launched two ambitious strategies to lead the world in cutting carbon emissions to combat climate change, while driving economic growth. The Industrial Strategy: building a Britain fit for the futureand the Clean Growth Strategy: Leading the way to a low carbon futureset out how actions to meet the UK’s ambitious targets to tackle climate change can be a win-win: cutting consumer bills, driving economic growth, creating high value jobs and helping to improve quality of life.

Both Strategies emphasise and confirm at the highest level the UK’s commitment to the principles underpinning the purpose and aims of Mission Innovation. Innovation is at the heart of both strategies, recognising its importance for reducing the costs of clean technologies and creating new high value jobs and industries. The Industrial Strategy commit’s the UK to raising public and private investment in R&D to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027, the UK’s largest increase in public spending on science, research and innovation in over three decades. As part of the UK’s commitment to Clean Growth, the Clean Growth Strategy includes over £2.5 billion to deliver programmes between 2015-2021 in low carbon energy, transport, agriculture and waste across all stages of the innovation cycle, from basic research to pre-commercial trials.

We will continue to build our international partnerships in clean growth research and innovation: the UK is a proud member of Mission Innovation – a global initiative that aims to reinvigorate and accelerate the global clean energy revolution.

– Statement in Industrial Strategy

Top clean energy innovation successes in 2017

• BEIS Energy Innovation Programme:The £505 million BEIS Energy Innovation Programme is accelerating the commercialisation of innovative clean energy technologies and processes. As part of this programme, the UK announced several new funding commitments in 2017:
  • up to £10 million for innovations that provide low carbon heat in domestic and commercial buildings
  • up to £10 million for innovations that improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings
  • an extra £14 million for the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund, including a new sixth fund
  • up to £20 million in a Carbon Capture and Utilisation demonstration programme
  • up to £20 million to demonstrate the viability of switching to low carbon fuels for industry
  • up to £20 million to support clean technology early stage funding

• The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fundprovides funding and support to UK businesses and researchers to ensure that research and innovation takes centre stage in the government’s Industrial Strategyin order to meet the major industrial and societal challenges of our time. Three programmes focused on clean energy challenges were announced in 2017, 1) to develop cutting edge capabilities in smart energy systems, 2) on construction methods to build efficient buildings that are safer, healthier and use less energy and3) the Faraday Challenge– a £246m commitment over the next four years to support the design, development and manufacture of batteries for the electrification of vehicles.
• Future Fuels for Flight and Freight Competition (F4C):The F4C is a £22m industry competition launched in August 2017 intended to support construction of novel low carbon fuel plants in the UK. It targets low carbon aviation and HGV fuels, sectors with relatively few decarbonisation options. The intention is to help demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of high-potential technologies, by removing fundamental barriers to scale up, and enable them to reach commercial scale. Government funding will be at least matched by the private sector, and is expected to support construction of up to five plants by 2021.

Top activities delivered in support of the Innovation Challenges in 2017

• As co-lead of the Heating & Cooling of Buildings Innovation Challenge (IC7), the UK has been instrumental in driving forward activities within this challenge. Last year, IC7 identified 6 priority areas where additional research collaboration could add value, with the UK leading on Heat Pumps. The UK supported the planning and facilitation of the IC7 technical workshop in Abu Dhabi in November 2017, which was well attended by UK researchers. As a result of this workshop, the UK is exploring an international collaboration on sorption heat pumps with other MI member countries.
• The UK has undertaken two bilateral collaborations:
  • The UK and the Republic of Korean Governments are committing up to £6m, from 2018 to 2021, to deliver a bilateral competition on smart energy innovation. This innovation collaboration competition will provide grant funding to companies and other organisations for the development and demonstration of smart energy technologies and services. Projects supported by this competition could include: Energy storage, Demand-side response, Vehicle-to-grid technologies, System integration and Flexibility trading models.
  • UK-Canada Collaboration on Smart Energy Systems:Announced at the 3rd MI Ministerial meeting in Malmo, Sweden in May 2018, the UK and Canada are collaborating to develop and launch a challenge focused on breakthrough smart grid / energy storage technologies. This initiative is a key part of the Partnership between the UK and Canada on Clean Growth and Climate Change.

• The UK has played an active role in the development of the CCUS Innovation Challenge, with over 20 UK participants attending the workshop in Houston. As part of our support for Carbon, Capture, Utilisation and Storage activities, the UK, jointly with the International Energy Agency, will be holding a high-level international CCUS Summit in November 2018, bringing together Governments, senior leaders from industry and investors to consider practical steps to accelerate progress on CCUS.

Collaborations

UK-India Joint Virtual Clean Energy Centre
Countries: India
Type of collaboration: public-public
Start date: 2016
Funding amount: £10M total

To address the challenge of integrating intermittent, renewable energy sources with energy storage for both grids and isolated communities in India and UK. The Centre brings together experts from the UK and India with complementary expertise and experience to address technical challenges associated with rapidly growing solar generation in both countries.

Joint UK/India Energy Demand Reduction in the Built Environment Call
Countries: India
Type of collaboration: public-public
Start date: 2017
End date: 2021
Funding amount: Up to £7.6 total
Open to UK/India collaborative proposals – call topic of reducing energy demand in the built environment

Efficiency for Access (EforA)
(UK contribution is Low Energy Inclusive Appliances – LEIA)
Countries: Germany, Sweden, United States
Type of collaboration: public-private
Start date: 2017
End date: 2022
Funding amount: £18m from UK

The EforA Coalition is a global initiative that is scaling up and bringing together a range of programmes and support mechanisms to accelerate energy efficiency in clean energy access efforts. The LEIA contribution involves research to accelerate the availability, affordability, efficiency and performance of Appliances suited to developing country contexts. (Official Development Assistance funding focussed on Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian countries.)

Transforming Energy Access (TEA)
Type of collaboration: public-private
Start date: 2016
End date: 2021
Funding amount: £65m

TEA supports early stage testing and scale up of innovative technologies and business models that will accelerate access to affordable, clean energy based services to poor households and enterprises. It incorporates a range of partnerships, competitions, funds, platforms and skills initiatives. (Official Development Assistance funding focussed on Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian countries.)

Bilateral collaboration on smart energy innovation
Countries: Republic of Korea
Type of collaboration: public-public, funding private-private projects
Start date: 2018
End date: 2021
Funding amount: £6M in total (up to £3M UK contribution)

The competition will provide grant funding to companies and other organisations for the development and demonstration of smart energy technologies and services focused on:

• energy storage
• demand-side response
• vehicle-to-grid technologies
• system integration
• flexibility trading models

Collaboration on Smart Energy Systems
Countries: Canada
Type of collaboration: public-public, funding private-private projects
Start date: 2018
End date: 2021
Funding amount: Match funding between the UK and Canada to total C$20M (up to £6M UK contribution)

The UK and Canada will jointly develop and launch a challenge focused on breakthrough smart grid / energy storage technologies. This initiative is a key part of the Partnership between the UK and Canada on Clean Growth and Climate Change.

Smart energy system technologies
Countries: France
Start date: in development
Knowledge sharing and identifying priority innovation areas on Smart Energy System Technologies to deliver a secure, robust, affordable, low carbon energy system and facilitate the transition to low carbon transport, which will provide clean growth and contribute to the achievement of our international clean energy goals.

US Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP)
Countries: United States