The UK is seeking to 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.
The government has launched the £80 million Industrial Strategy
Challenge Fund Driving the Electric Revolution
Challenge to help businesses to meet this need.
Its aim is to 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.
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, has up to
£15 million from the fund and from the Office for Low
Emission Vehicles (OLEV) to support business
research into these new technologies and to support the
development of a supply chain. The funding competition has
2 strands.
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
- the competition is open, and the deadline for
applications is at 11am on 29 July 2020
- businesses of any size may apply and must work with at
least one other organisation
- we expect projects to range in size between £100,000
and £500,000 and last between 3 and 9 months
-
view the online briefing
event
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
- the competition is open, and the deadline for
applications is at 11am on 29 July 2020
- businesses of any size may apply, and they can work
alone or with up to 2 other organisations
- we expect projects to range in size between £100,000
and £500,000 and last up to 6 months
- an online briefing
event takes place on 22 June 2020
