Introduction

The Government is doing it very best to support innovative energy R&D in the UK. Thus a new scheme, the Energy Catalyst follows on from such schemes as the Energy Entrepreneurs scheme and various support measures for specific technologies e.g. Off-shore wind, marine power and carbon capture.

The catalyst programmes typically run over a number of rounds and we describe below the first of these.

Unfortunately none of these will be in time to stop the real possibility of the 'lights going out' sometime soon-that would require sound policy making and real investment but it is certainly good for innovative companies in the energy sector!

Background

The Energy Catalyst supports businesses and research organisations, including academia, to respond to challenges across the energy sector. It will fund projects delivering innovative solutions that address all elements of the energy trilemma namely:

Low carbon

 Security of supply

 Affordability.

It will help stimulate and support innovation at all stages through to commercial readiness. Thus The Energy Catalyst can fund projects from early concept stage through to pre-commercial technology validation, based upon innovation that incorporates, for example:

New technologies or enhancement of existing technologies

Components, sub-systems or systems

Integrated whole system approaches

Enabling technologies for the energy system.

How it will work

A key feature is that the scheme operates 'bottom-up' which means that the participants get to decide the matter to be research as long as it addresses the main issue -the Trilemma mentioned above. Thus the scope is huge. This contrasts with the majority of schemes where the research subject is tightly specified i.e. 'top-down' by the grantor.

The competition is open to both SMEs and large companies and UK based research organizations.

The completion requires collaboration between 2 or more bodies but must be business led.

The completion will operate 3 different strand addressing different levels of technical readiness as below.

1) Early Stage Awards: Technical feasibility

These projects will explore and evaluate the technical potential of an early-stage idea or concept through technical feasibility studies (including, for example, pre-industrial research at a small scale).

Key features

Single-stage application process

Projects must be led by either an SME (acting either individually or collaboratively) or by a research organisation (collaborating with business)

Duration: up to 12 months

Total project costs: up to £300k

Business partner funding: up to 75% of their total project costs for SMEs or 65% for larger companies

2) Mid-Stage Awards: Technology development

These projects will take innovative ideas forward through the technology development stage by conducting industrial research and development (including, for example, laboratory studies, testing, verification and evaluation in simulated environments).

Key features:

Two stage application process: expression of interest followed by full proposals from invited applicants Projects must be collaborative and business-led.

Duration: up to 36 months

Total project costs: up to £3m

Business partner funding: up to 60% of their total project costs for

SMEs or 50% for larger companies.

3) Late Stage Awards: Pre-commercial technical validation

These projects will demonstrate and evaluate the capability and performance of innovative technologies through pre-commercial technology validation (including, for example, prototype and pilot testing including field trials in realistic operating environments).

Key features:

Two stage application process: expression of interest followed by full proposals from invited applicants Projects must be collaborative and business-led

Duration: up to 36 months

Total project costs: up to £10m

Business partner funding: up to 35% for SMEs or 25% for larger companies.

It is likely there will a number of rounds to this scheme. The first round opens as of May 2014 with £25 million backing.

Key dates are:

Early stage: single stage application:

  Opens: 19 May 2014

  Registration closes: 29 Oct 2014

  Closes: 05 Nov 2014

Mid stage: 2 stage application

• Open: 19 May 2014
• Registration close: 27 August 2014
• Expression of interest close: 3 September 2014  
• Full application close: 5 November 2014 

Late stage: 2 stage application

• Open: 19 May 2014
• Registration close: 27 August 2014
• Expression of interest close: 3 September 2014  
• Full application close: 5 November 2014 
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Grant Aid has been successful in obtaining substantial grants from previous energy related schemes and we would be happy to help you make an application saving you time , maximising the size of grant and ,above all , increasing your chance of success.