DECC’s innovation funding

The Spending Review of November 2010 announced funding of over £200 million for low-carbon technologies over the next four financial years from April 2011. To date this has been allocated as follows:

• Up to £60 million for the development of offshore wind manufacturing at port sites. More information is available on the Offshore wind: Business development web page.
• Up to £20 million for the Marine Energy Array Demonstrator (MEAD) Capital Grant scheme. The scheme will support the deployment of the first arrays of wave and/or tidal stream energy devices.
• Up to £20 million for the development of innovation Carbon Capture and Storage technologies.
• Up to £30 million for the Offshore Wind Component Technologies Development and Demonstration Scheme. To date one call, with a budget of £5m has been run. A 2nd call is expected to be launched shortly.
• Up to £35 million for the Buildings Innovation Programme – which has the goal to drive down the costs of saving energy and reducing carbon emissions in homes and businesses. That £35m will fund the following schemes: up to £20m for buildings technologies supported through the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund (see below); up to £10m for a non-domestic buildings scheme; up to £3m for an SBRI competition on advanced storage and £2.8m to trial thermal (hot-water) storage integrated with heat pumps in domestic buildings. See the associated Press notice.
• Up to £15 million to support power generation technologies through the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund, which together with £20m from the Buildings Programme allocation (see above) brings the total budget for the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund to £35 million. See the associated Press notice.

Plans are being developed for the allocation of the remainder of the innovation funding. We have some difficult choices to make in prioritising spend and will need to focus on those technologies and programmes where there are clear market failures and where intervention will have greatest impact on meeting the Government’s climate change and energy objectives. Government and the private sector will need to work together to address these priorities.

Low Carbon Innovation Co-ordination Group

The Low Carbon Innovation Co-ordination Group brings together the prime government bodies supporting low carbon innovation, and includes DECC in its membership. The groups aims are to maximise the impact of UK public sector funding for low carbon energy, in order to:

• Deliver affordable, secure, sustainable energy for the UK
• Deliver UK economic growth
• Develop the UK’s capabilities, knowledge and skills

Recently the group has been working together on the Technology Innovation Needs Assessment (TINA) project. This project aims to identify and value the key innovation needs of specific low carbon technology families to inform the prioritisation of public sector investment in low carbon innovation. DECC is using the TINAs to help inform its prioritisation and allocation of its funds to support low carbon technologies.

Contacts

• General enquiries: Jackie Walsh, Science and Innovation Directorate, Jackie.walsh@decc.gsi.gov.uk, telephone: 0300 068 6144