The Technology Strategy Board has allocated up to £3m to invest in highly innovative, collaborative R&D projects that address the application and demonstration of materials technologies for use in:

• Energy generation 
• Energy transmission and distribution
• Energy storage.

The UK faces a number of challenges around energy supply, cost and security, which are all set against the need to reduce regional, national as well as global CO2 emissions. This has created a need to diversify the UK energy portfolio to incorporate a mix of fossil, nuclear and renewable energy sources.  UK industry now has a major opportunity to examine transferable materials solutions and methods that will be needed to support the development of energy technologies for the future.

The focus of the competition will be on projects that support applied research, experimental development and application of materials technologies which address challenges in scaling up technologies, from initial laboratory proof of concept to small-scale technology demonstrations and pilots in a representative environment.

We are funding collaborative R&D projects which must be led by industry and clearly focus on how the development will benefit business and address UK energy targets. We expect to fund most approved projects at 25-50% of the total costs and expect typical projects have a total value in the region of £1m, although projects outside this range will be considered.

For more information and to download the competition flyer go to the TSB website.