Businesses can now apply for a share of a £15 million Innovate UK fund to support the development of zero emission vehicle technologies and a supporting supply chain.
This forms part of the Government’s £80 million Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Driving the Electronic Revolution Challenge to help the UK put green technologies at the heart of economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Zero emission vehicle technologies are a key part of the country’s efforts to meet its carbon reduction targets. The power electronics, machines and drivers required are also a significant global opportunity for UK manufacturers, says Innovate UK.
The aim is also accelerate the UK’s ability to deliver the next generation of electric vehicles, hybrid aircraft, energy generation, smart grids, industrial drives, consumer products, agricultural vehicles, ships, and rail.
The fund is in two strands as follows:
Strand 1: Projects must develop supply chain improvements:
Up to £5 million is available to support business-led projects that aim to improve the UK supply chain for power electronics, machines, and drives.
Projects could work on one or more of the following:
- manufacturing process development such as improving productivity, implementing new tools, automating processes, reconfiguring processes to improve productivity or flexibility
- design for manufacture such as designing or redesigning a product for more efficient production, specification of a manufacturing process, improvements in modelling and simulation software, developments to allow manufacture of products with recycling taken into consideration
- circular economy approaches such as scale-up of processes for recycling and recovery of materials, lifecycle and embedded carbon analysis, and waste reduction and process energy efficiency
- innovative testing and validation such as virtual product validation, and scale-up or automation of testing and validation processes.
This competition is now open and the deadline for applications is at 11am on July 29th 2020. Businesses of any size may apply and must with at least one other organisation. Innovate UK expects projects to range in size between £1000,000 and £500,000 and last between three and nine months. view the online briefing event
Find out more about this competition and apply.
Strand 2: Work must target zero or very low emissions
Up to £10 million is available to support feasibility studies and research and development projects looking to develop technologies for zero emission vehicles or that target emissions significantly lower than 75g of CO2 per km. Projects developing electric vehicle charging are also eligible for support.
Projects must build on a previous research project or feasibility study and could work on niche or mainstream vehicles including motorcycles, cars, goods vehicles and emergency vehicles.
Work could include:
- battery technologies
- electrification of conventional powertrains
- hybridisation technologies
- technologies that increase the efficiency of powertrain or auxiliary systems
- hydrogen technologies
- range extender technologies
- EV charging services including charging solutions, roaming, integration and grid services
This competition is also now open and the deadline for applications is also 11am on July 29th 2020. Any business of any size can apply and they can either work alone or with two other organisations. Innovate UK expects projects to range between £1000,000 and £500,000 and last up to six months.
An online briefing event took place on 22 June 2020
