Energy regulator Ofgem has approved up to £95.3 million in funding that will go to ten projects focusing on clean heat, zero emission transport, data and digitalisation and whole system integration.
The funding, which has been provided by Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), has been allocated to Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission, SP Energy Networks, National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO), National Gas Transmission, Scotland Gas Networks and Southern Gas Networks and Cadent Gas.
The projects include technologies that will enable more flexible use of energy, AI and weather data systems to predict energy network risks and faults and circuit breakers that are expected to enable the increasing amounts of power generated by offshore wind to be connected to the grid more efficiently.
£49.1 million will be allocated to hydrogen-related technologies – an energy carrier that could be utilised across a multitude of hard-to-abate sectors. Green hydrogen, the cleanest variant of hydrogen, is being explored as a means to support the UK’s energy transition.
£33.3 million of funding is to be allocated to National Gas Transmission for a project looking to adapt existing gas compression units for use with hydrogen, to enable it to be fed into networks.
A further £9.9 million of funding will be used to investigate the viability of using hydrogen to fuel heavy-duty transportation.
“To achieve our target of clean power by 2035 we need to look across the board for innovative solutions that will deliver resiliency, reliability and affordability at pace,” said Marzia Zafar, deputy director of digitalisation and innovation at Ofgem.
“Our work with Innovate UK empowers innovators through SIF funding and creates a launch pad for development of the transformative technologies which will help drive forward the energy transition at least cost to consumers.”
Other projects that are being supported via the SIF funding include the CrowdFlex project being led by ESO and the Digital Platform for Leakage Analytics project, led by Cadent with Guidehouse as a technology delivery partner.
“It is exciting to see these Beta projects, after showing their potential, moving on to demonstrate their energy innovations in the real world,” said Matt Hastings, deputy director of the Ofgem SIF programme at Innovate UK.
“Net zero is the most urgent issue of our lifetime, and the SIF and the energy networks have moved fast to develop these ideas into large-scale demonstrators in less than 18 months from initial proposals. They have the potential to deliver big savings in costs and carbon emissions in the coming years.
“The SIF has already funded more than 100 innovative projects since 2022, and we encourage more innovators to come forward with great ideas that could become the transformative technologies of tomorrow.”