Ofgem SIF backs solutions for Britain’s biggest energy challenges – UKRI

Further information

Ofgem SIF: cycle six beta, summary of projects approved

Round four, challenge four: accelerating towards net zero energy network

DEsign for Live Line Technology Acceleration (DELLTA)

DELLTA explores live working techniques for existing and new high voltage assets, enabling maintenance of reliable and resilient networks without outages, avoiding operational disruption and constraint costs.

SIF funding award: £4,947,031

Project partners:

• National Grid Electricity Transmission (lead)
• The University of Manchester
• University of Liverpool
• Fraser-Nash Consultancy
• Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission
• Allied Insulators
• Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Round five, challenge four: consumer centric grid solutions

Net Zero Terrace

Net Zero Terrace will showcase a novel solution to decarbonising six million terraced homes.

This will enable communities to replicate the approach, ensuring no-one is left behind in the net zero transition.

SIF funding award: £7,188,365

Project partners:

• Electricity North West (lead)
• Northern Powergrid (Northeast)
• Buro Happold
• UK Power Networks (Operations)
• Centre For Energy Equality
• Looped Energy Communities
• Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Ofgem SIF: cycle six alpha, summary of projects approved

Round five, challenge four: consumer centric grid solutions

Grounds for Change

Grounds for Change addresses the critical challenge of scaling low voltage service replacement upgrades to meet Great Britain’s decarbonisation targets without causing widespread consumer disruption.

SIF funding award: £622,691

Project partners:

• Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution (lead)
• Energy Innovation Centre
• Southampton City Council

Round five, challenge five: enhanced system visibility and control

Quantum optimisation for future gas network design

Quantum optimisation will develop a quantum-inspired optimisation approach to improve outage planning in gas transmission networks.

It addresses current limitations in exploring complex planning scenarios by enabling systematic evaluation of a much larger number of options.

SIF funding award: £616,558

Project partners:

• National Gas Transmission (lead)
• PA Consulting Services
• National Grid Electricity Transmission
• Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission

Round five, challenge six: green gas

Green Gas Access

Green Gas Access aims to unlock more low-carbon biomethane for use in Great Britain’s gas networks by improving how networks understand, plan for, and manage green gas supplies.

SIF funding award: £594,862

Project partners:

• Southern Gas Networks (lead)
• Cadent Gas
• DNV Services UK
• Grissan Engineering & Technical Services

Strategic Innovation Fund challenge 2: faster build and maintenance

Routing and Planning through Interoperable Data (RAPID)

RAPID will develop a shared transmission data interoperability framework to streamline planning and consenting processes.

This will:

• enable future digital and AI enabled solutions
• accelerate network infrastructure delivery
• support Clean Power 2030

SIF funding award: £453,988

Project partners:

• Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission (lead)
• Ove Arup & Partners
• National Grid Electricity Transmission
• NESO
• SP Transmission

Ofgem SIF: cycle six discovery, summary of projects approved

Round five, challenge four: consumer centric grid solutions

Bradford Flexible Industrial Infrastructure Transition (BFIIT)

The consumer-centric, multi-vector energy planning solution, BFIIT reduces network costs, improves flexibility and enables fair, scalable decarbonisation in dispersed urban clusters (manufacturers and public-sector heat users).

SIF funding award: £198,237

Project partners:

• Norther Powergrid (Northeast) (lead)
• Northern Gas Networks
• Centre for Energy Equality
• City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council
• Bradford Manufacturing Futures
• West Yorkshire Combined Authority
• Bradford Energy

Round five, challenge five: enhanced system visibility and control

Quantum Inspired Power System (QUIPS)

QUIPS uses quantum-inspired computing to improve power system modelling and optimisation, enabling faster decisions and unlocking capacity within existing electricity networks.

SIF funding award: £134,889

Project partners:

• Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution (lead)
• University of Strathclyde

Strategic Innovation Fund challenge 1: industrial and business connection acceleration

DISPATCH

DISPATCH investigates how data centres can be sited to provide low-temperature waste heat and share flexibility service income with heat networks.

This will benefit customers with vulnerabilities while also enabling faster connection.

SIF funding award: £181,366

Project partners:

• National Grid Electricity Distribution (lead)
• EA Technology
• Centre For Energy Equality

Strategic Innovation Fund challenge 3: instant use domestic energy devices

Roaming MPANs

Roaming MPANs proposes a new model to enable cost-effective and equitable EV charging.

By securely linking home accounts to local public chargers, drivers could pay the same rates, access smart tariffs, and charge as if at home.

SIF funding award: £166,092

Project partners:

• Southern Electric Power Distribution (lead)
• EDF Energy R&D UK Centre
• Cenex (Centre of Excellence for Low Carbon and Fuel Cell Technologies)
• Smart DCC
• Charge My Street

Strategic Innovation Fund challenge 4: eliminating energy outages

Security of Supply reflecting distributed generation (SOS Racer)

SOS Racer will assess how distributed demand-side flexibility can strengthen electricity security of supply and inform future resilience, planning and market frameworks.

SIF funding award: £167,822

Project partners:

• National Grid Electricity Distribution (lead)
• The Association for Decentralised Energy
• Cornwall Insight

IDG charter discovery project

Innovation challenge 1 innovation charter

This project will develop an innovation charter to address one of the biggest challenges facing energy networks: how to connect new industrial and commercial customers, within six months by 2033.

SIF funding award: £199,412

Project lead:

• Southern Electric Power Distribution

Innovation challenge 2 innovation charter

This project will develop an Innovation charter for challenge 2, identifying barriers and priority innovations to deliver 50% faster, 20% lower-cost network delivery by 2035 through evidence, stakeholder engagement, and sector coordination.

SIF funding award: £200,000

Project lead:

• Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission

Innovation challenge 3 innovation charter

This IDG is developing an innovation charter to guide delivery of innovation challenge 3: instant use domestic energy devices.

The innovation charter will set out a strategic framework for enabling instant, plug-and-play connections of domestic energy devices and appliances by 2032.

SIF funding award: £200,00

Project partners:

• UK Power Networks (Operations) (lead)
• Energy Systems Catapult
• SP Manweb

Innovation challenge 4 innovation charter

This discovery phase SIF project will develop the innovation charter for Energy Network Innovation Taskforce (ENIT) challenge 4: eliminating energy outages.

This innovation charter will lead to near-zero interruptions via autonomous reconfiguring and islanding of any section of the network by 2038.

SIF funding award: £200,000

Project partners:

• NESO
• Ove Arup & Partners
• SP Transmission

Innovation challenge 5 innovation charter

This Discovery phase SIF project relates to setting up the IDG for the Energy Network Innovation Taskforce (ENIT) challenge 5: decentralised system balancing.

This will deliver products and services to prove the viability of autonomous local balancing and optimisation of networks at every level by 2034.

SIF funding award: £199,861

Project partners:

• National Grid Electricity Distribution (lead)
• Regen SW
• NESO
• DR Energy Futures