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research and innovation lead to new products, services,
and more effective ways of doing business with a lower carbon
impact
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to get every part of the UK firing on all cylinders we
need to deliver an energy infrastructure system fit for the
21st century
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investment in innovation will help to commercialise our
world-leading ideas and place UK companies at the forefront of
developing low carbon growth solutions
The Industrial Strategy green
paper highlighted the government’s commitment to
minimise business energy costs and support the competitiveness of
UK companies as we pursue our climate change targets in the most
cost effective way.
Today Minister of State for Climate Change and Industry attended the Rushlight Awards where
he announced funding for a series of energy innovation projects.
The funding boost of £28 million will be invested in smart
systems, industrial energy reduction and offshore wind
demonstrating our commitment to building a low carbon, low cost
future. This forms part of the government’s commitment to double
support for energy innovation, up to £400 million per year in
2021.
More details of the government’s Energy Innovation Programme and
funding are available from the GOV.UK Energy Innovation
page.
This financial support follows on the government’s vision to
ensure the UK continues to be the global leader in science and
research. The Industrial Strategy green
paper identifies that we need to do more to
commercialise the world-class ideas and discoveries made in
Britain, and put the UK and British companies at the forefront of
innovation.
Minister for Climate Change and Industry said:
Innovation in energy will play an important role to shape our
low carbon future to rebuild an outdated energy system. That’s
why we’ve increased our financial support, helping to create
jobs and opportunities for people across the UK.
Our Industrial Strategy green paper seeks views on how we can
support these emerging technologies, ensuring we drive growth
and develop international partnerships across our world leading
research, science and innovation sector.
Under the new investment, up to £9 million will be spent on a
competition to reduce the cost of energy storage, including
electricity, thermal, and power-to-gas storage and up to £600,000
for feasibility studies for projects that can store energy on a
large scale, for use when it’s needed.
Up to £7.6 million will be available for advancing energy demand
side response technologies that can help both private and public
sector organisations reduce energy use in peak times.
To reduce the cost of energy for industry, the government will
invest around £9 million in a competition for ‘industrial energy
efficiency accelerator’. The competition would help to find new
ways of improving the energy efficiency of UK industry, helping
to develop industry-specific options for a low carbon future.
Today’s announcement reaffirms our financial support to the
sector after the investment of £2 billion a year by 2020-21 in
research and development and £23 billion in high value investment
through National Productivity Investment Fund was introduced at
the Autumn Statement. The funds will address our key economic
challenge of raising business productivity, helping to support
business and research collaborations to explore opportunities to
transform industries.
