Applications Invited for Competition on Energy Catalyst Round 8: Clean Energy - Experimental Development

Energy Catalyst Round 8: Clean Energy - Experimental Development

About the Organization:

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Description

The aim of this competition is to support highly innovative, market-focused energy solutions in any technology or sector.

Your project must encourage the development of products and services that help countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, South East Asia or multiple regions access secure, low cost and low carbon energy. They must be targeted at people, public services and local enterprises who are unable to afford or access existing solutions, or who lack the time or expertise to successfully use those solutions.

Your proposal must also address all 3 elements of the energy ‘trilemma’:

• cost
• emissions
• security of supply and energy access

There are 3 options to apply into this competition. These are referred to as strands and will be run in parallel. The strands are dependent on the stage your project is at:

• Early stage for feasibility studies.
• Mid-stage for industrial research.
• Late stage for experimental development (this strand).

This is the late stage competition for experimental development. It is your responsibility to make sure you submit your application for the correct stage.

Who can apply

To be eligible for funding you can be from any country. If you are an international organisation, you need to partner with a UK administration lead and must be one of the following types of organisation:

• business
• research technology organisation (RTO)
• academic organisation
• charity
• public sector organisation

International organisations must partner with a UK registered administrative lead. If you are a UK SME, you can apply on your own.

Your project must involve a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), from anywhere in the world, either as a technical lead or consortium member.

Your project

Your project must:

• have total eligible costs between £50,000 and £5,000,000
• start by 1 April 2021
• end by 31 March 2024
• last between 12 and 36 months
• must intend to use the results to help deliver clean energy access in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or South East Asia
• must involve at least one partner with a legal entity in one of the focus countries in Africa and South Asia, this could include in-country offices
• must include a UK registered administrative lead
• must involve at least one small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), from anywhere in the world

Lead applicants

The administrative lead:

• must be a UK registered business of any size
• will be the recipient of the award and will distribute funding to the international partners (known as a ‘hub and spoke’ model)
• will manage and be accountable for the finances of the project in accordance with the terms and conditions of the award
• must claim grant funding through this competition

The technical lead:

• can be from anywhere in the world
• will lead on the development of the scope, work packages within the project and other work from a technical perspective
• can be a business (of any size)
• must claim grant funding through this competition

If you are an SME from outside the UK you cannot apply on your own as there must be a UK administrative lead. UK- registered businesses of any size can be both the administrative and technical lead.

Funding

They have allocated up to £20 million to fund innovation projects across the 3 strands in this competition. £5m of this funding is provided by the Department for International Development (DFID).

Specific themes

Your project could focus on, for example:

• making new solutions more affordable
• integrating technologies in new systems or business models to help unlock finance and deployment
• developing technologies or partnership business models that address other barriers to deployment, such as skills required to develop or maintain technologies
• unlocking under-served market segments that existing solutions are not reaching at scale, such as rural areas, frontier markets or specific energy end-users

Project size: Your late stage project’s total eligible costs must be between £50,000 and £5,000,000.

If your project’s total eligible costs or duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@innovateuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. They will decide whether to approve your request.

Deadline: Wednesday 16 September 2020 11:00am

For more information please check the Link