Grant
Your project’s total eligible grant funding request must be between £350,000 and £700,000.
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £3 million for project development studies to support the development of ultra long duration battery energy storage demonstrators in the UK.
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £3 million from the UKRI R&D Missions Accelerator Programme in this competition. This is to support the delivery of electrochemical ultra long duration energy storage (ULDES) project development studies in Phase 1.
This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.
The aim of this competition is to support the development, scale-up, and UK manufacture of electrochemical ULDES technologies. These ULDES technologies must be capable of delivering cost effective electrical power to the UK’s electricity grid with a discharge availability of at least 100 continuous hours. They must also achieve a working life of at least 25 years.
Your proposal must deliver a project development study that includes:
This is Phase 1 of a planned two phase competition, with Phase 2 scheduled to launch in the middle of 2027.
A further funding of at least £10 million has been allocated for a planned Phase 2, to support the development and delivery of large scale ULDES demonstrators.
The award of funding for the project development study under this Phase 1 will not be a condition of eligibility for Phase 2. Eligible businesses are strongly encouraged to use this Phase1 competition to address the practical delivery issues that determine whether projects can move from concept to construction.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it.
We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, for example, any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny.
We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions.
This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.
We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.
You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.
We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.
You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).