Updated: Information on funding schemes for low-carbon fuel technology added.
Overview
This guide gives information about schemes, open competitions and collaboration opportunities in government and EU supported low carbon energy projects, which form part of the drive for transformational innovation.
European Collaboration: funding schemes
European Energy Innovation Funding - 2016 Horizon 2020 Energy Calls
The 2016 Calls for Proposals for Horizon 2020 Energy have begun to open.
Horizon 2020 Energy, with a budget of around €6bn over the period 2014 - 2020, is the EU’s Research and Innovation grant funding Programme for energy technology research, development, demonstration and removing market barriers.
The 2016 Calls have a total budget of over €500m and will cover a range of technology areas including energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, smart grids and smart cities.
The table below includes links to more information on the specific challenges, scope and expected impacts for each of the topics.
UK organisations involvement: One of the objectives of Horizon 2020 is to increase industrial engagement in projects. UK organisations can participate in a number of ways: lead (coordinate) a project, be a participant in a consortium, or provide the demonstration facilities for a technology. Whichever way you choose to participate you need to start early to develop a competitive proposal. Proposals will usually involve a minimum of three organisations from three different Member States or Associated Countries.
Support available for UK organisations: EU Energy Focus is the UK‘s National Contact Point (NCP) Service for Energy. It is a free UK Government-funded service, that aims to ensure that UK companies, research institutions and other organisations are well informed and have every chance of success in applying for and securing European funding for energy-related projects. The service includes one-to-one discussion of proposal ideas, review of draft proposals and applying the learning from the previous Horizon 2020 Energy Calls. Further information on the EU Energy Focus website.
Topic areas and links to further information
Indicative budget
Indicative budget per project
Indicative launch dates
Indicative deadlines
Energy efficiency research and demonstration in the areas of heating & cooling, engaging consumers, buildings and industry & products
50M€
3 to 5 M€
15 Oct 2015
21 Jan 2016
Low Carbon energy technology development including PV, CSP, wind, ocean energy, solar heating, hydropower, geothermal, CHP, bioenergy, CCS
120M€
0.6 to 10M€
27 Oct 2015
16 Feb 2016
Smart grids and storage development and demonstration and socio-economic research
150M€
1 to 15M€
8 Dec 2015
5 April 2016
Smart cities and communities (Proposals must incorporate the demonstration of smart homes, integration of renewables, smart grids, energy storage, electric vehicles and smart charging infrastructure in a single specified area of the city)
60M€
12 to 18M€
8 Dec 2015
5 April 2016
Addressing barriers to energy efficiency in areas of heating and cooling, engaging consumers, buildings, industry and products and financing innovation
43M€
0.5 to 2M€
15 March 2016
15 Sept 2016
Low carbon energy technology demonstration including PV, wind, ocean and biofuels
85M€
3 to 15M€
10 May 2016
8 Sept 2016
The Energy Entrepreneurs Fund
The Energy Entrepreneurs Fund is a competitive funding scheme to support the development and demonstration of state of the art technologies, products and processes in the areas of energy efficiency, power generation, heat and electricity storage and carbon capture and storage (CCS).
The Energy Entrepreneurs Fund seeks the best ideas, irrespective of source, across these energy technology areas from the public and private sector. The scheme particularly aims to assist small and medium-sized enterprises, including start-ups, and those companies that are selected will receive additional funding for incubation support.
Phases 1, 2 and 3
The first phase of the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund was open from 23 August to 31 October 2012. Under this phase, £16 million was awarded to 31 projects. Following the second phase on 13th June 2013, a further £10m was awarded to 22 projects. Phase 3 in January 2014 resulted in a further £9m awarded to 19 projects. A full list of the projects who have received EEF grants to date is available on the GOV.UK website.
Phase 4
The fourth phase of the Energy Entrepreneur’s Fund was open from the 27 November 2014 to 26 January 2015. Under this phase £4.5m was awarded to 14 companies, with £1.7m allocated to projects focused on technologies associated with CCS. A full list of the projects who have received Phase 4 EEF grants is available on the GOV.UK website.
Low-carbon fuel technology: funding schemes
Funding opportunities exist to help low-carbon fuel innovators advance emerging technologies towards commercialisation. Funding is offered at the different stages of technological development:
research
lab testing
pilot-scale
demonstration-scale
Notable funding opportunities include the:
infrastructure systems and manufacturing materials sector schemes, offered by Innovate UK
research and innovation programme, offered by Horizon 2020
international funding programme, by Eurostars
The £25 million ‘Advanced Biofuels Demonstration Competition’ grant was launched by government in December 2014. The grant was made to support the development of a domestic advanced biofuel industry with winners announced in September 2015. Winners will continue to receive funding until 2018.
Bioenergy: funding schemes
Bioenergy demonstrator funding opportunity
The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), BBSRC and the Technology Strategy Board are part of a European consortium that, supported by the European Commission, aims to encourage generation of bioenergy through a single collaborative funding call. The objective of the call is to fund several collaborative bioenergy demonstration projects.
A consortium of 8 EU member states and associated countries, including the UK, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, is implementing BESTF, an Eranet-Plus activity. This activity will provide funding and support to collaborative bioenergy projects that demonstrate one or more innovative steps resulting in demonstration at a pre-commercial stage.
The competition took place in January 2013. Further details can be found on the InnovateUK website.
Second EU Bioenergy Demonstrator funding opportunity
Following the successful implementation of the first EU ERANET plus bioenergy demonstrator joint call that closed in March 2013, The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) joined forces again to lead a second initiative.
Bioenergy Sustaining the Future 2 (BESTF2), like its predecessor, aims to encourage the commercialisation of innovative bioenergy projects by providing financial support to high quality collaborative bioenergy demonstration projects.
Participating countries this time include the UK, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and The Netherlands. Projects need to demonstrate active participation from at least two of these countries.
The BESTF2 joint call launched on 11 December 2013, and full details can be found on the BESTF website](http://www.eranetbestf.net/).
Video footage of the UK launch event can be found on the on the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network You Tube channel.
Bioenergy Sustaining the Future 2: early market engagement document
PDF, 251KB, 5 pages
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Energy efficiency and storage: funding schemes
Heat storage competition for SBRI contracts
DECC launched a competition to assess the performance of advanced thermal storage, which can be integrated with heat technologies to help balance peak loads to the grid.
The competition aimed to assess the viability of compact heat storage materials as an effective means to mitigate potential strain on the electricity grid in scenarios of increasing loads from low-carbon heat technologies (such as heat pumps).
The competition closed to applicants in August 2012. Successful studies were invited to participate in a prototype demonstration (Phase 2) in spring 2013, with monitoring to take place over a 12-month period.
Competition documents
DECC advanced heat storage project brief
Advanced heat storage competition guidance notes
DECC Pre-Commercial Procurement contract template
(PDF, 105KB, 21 pages)
Nuclear innovation: funding schemes
Nuclear power is, and will continue to be, a key part of our low-carbon energy mix alongside renewable generation and Carbon Capture and Storage. All of these technologies are important in tackling climate change and diversifying our supply, contributing to the UK’s energy security and growth.
A cross-government review, undertaken in response to the House of Lords’ Science and Technology Committee’s report on UK nuclear research and development (R&D) capabilities, led to the publication, in March 2013, of a suite of documents including the Nuclear Industry Strategy; a Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap; a Nuclear Industrial Vision Statement; a Long Term Nuclear Energy Strategy; and a Civil Nuclear Research and Development Landscape Review.
In the UK, industry has set out plans to deliver around 16 GW of new nuclear by 2030. However, a significant expansion in nuclear power generation, beyond the immediate target of 16GW may be required if CO2 emission targets are to be met.
Investment in innovation will help to decrease costs, increase capacity, decrease delays to construction and demonstrate efficient waste and decommissioning processes. It has been estimated that investment in nuclear innovation could provide benefits valued between £2-14 billion to 2050 and £3-34 billion by 2100 (source Nuclear Fission Technology Innovation Needs Assessment). It would also help create UK based business opportunities that could contribute between £1.5 billion and £13 billion to GDP by 2050.
DECC is considering commissioning a techno-economic assessment, to deliver the necessary evidence base to inform any future Government policy decision on the development and deployment of SMRs within the UK. Further details are set out in the following document.
Early market engagement announcement
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Government is now considering its evidence requirements to support future policy decisions on SMRs. As such we are looking to engage with technology developers/vendors in the market to gather further detailed information on SMRs. This may lead to a techno-economic assessment in which parties will be invited to submit evidence for consideration against defined criteria.
The first step of this process was a specification study which intended to inform the key parameters of such a techno-economic assessment. We wanted to engage with parties at this stage to enable comment on the draft proposed key parameters, the categories of information that we think are important to structure the evidence base and what evidence is available.
We held a Vendor Engagement Workshop, further details are set out in the following vendor invitation document.
Vendor engagement workshop
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Nuclear Innovation funding opportunities for advanced reactors and spent fuel recycle research facilities
DECC ran calls for proposals to establish world leading facilities to support research in to advanced reactors and spent fuel recycling in early 2015.
Details are set out in the following documents.
Nuclear research and development: Advanced fuel recycle technologies calls for propopsals
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Nuclear research and development: high temperature materials testing suite calls for proposals
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DECC has issued a notification of the intention to issue two grants to establish world leading facilities to support research into accident tolerant fuels.
Details of the grants and how to provide any comments are set out in the following document.
Nuclear research and development - accident tolerant fuel
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Recent investment in nuclear innovation and R&D
On 10th December 2013, Michael Fallon MP, Minister for Business and Energy, announced a £28 million package of support for nuclear research and development aimed at making the UK a global leader in this field. This funding will support a number of R&D initiatives as part of the Nuclear Industrial Strategy:
The National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) was given the go-ahead to start commissioning the high activity cells in Phase 3 of their Central Laboratory, opening up opportunities to develop high end nuclear R&D skills and the potential to reduce decommissioning costs through further R&D. Government provided around £5million to the NNL to commence the process for commissioning this world-class facility.
£8million to establish a Nuclear Fuel Centre of Excellence (NFCE), the latest in a number of R&D facilities needed to support industry and academia across the entire nuclear sector. The funding will provide shared equipment at NNL’s Springfields’ and Central laboratories and the University of Manchester’s Dalton Cumbria and Manchester facilities.
Just over £1million, in financial year 2013-2014, for the 3rd phase of the National Nuclear Users Facility which will be used to provide equipment for the Advanced Digital Radiometric Instrumentation for Applied Nuclear Activities (ADRIANA); a state-of-the-art capability for the control, monitoring and operation of nuclear power stations with benefits also to nuclear safeguards & security, decommissioning activities, and fusion research.
A £1.5 million investment in an early nuclear R&D programme to be led by the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and completed by April 2014. This work will carry out strategic assessments on a range of candidate nuclear energy systems for different UK low carbon electricity futures.
Early in 2014, up to £13 million was made available jointly by the Technology Strategy Board, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to help UK-based businesses take advantage of the opportunities that arise from new nuclear. This is part of a drive to grow a robust and sustainable UK supply chain by developing innovative products and services for the nuclear sector. The initiative will focus on key technology areas such as construction, manufacturing, operation, maintenance and decommissioning & waste.
In addition to the investments highlighted above, the Minister also announced that Dame Sue Ion had been appointed as the Chair for the new Nuclear Innovation and Research Advisory Board (NIRAB), and that a Nuclear Innovation and Research Office (NIRO) had been established to provide an expert secretariat to the Board and coordinate nuclear R&D across the UK. The NIRO is hosted by the National Nuclear Laboratory in their Warrington offices, and Gordon Bryan was appointed as the Director of NIRO.
£13m Funding available for Nuclear R&D
InnovateUK, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are investing up to £13m in collaborative R&D and feasibility study projects, to stimulate innovation and strengthen the UK’s civil nuclear supply chain. The competition was open to all sizes of businesses and research organisations who may already be engaged in the nuclear sector or who are considering entering this growing market for the first time.
The competition had 2 strands:
Up to £10m is available for Collaborative R&D projects
Up to £3m is available for Feasibility Study projects
There were 5 technology themes which are applicable to both Strands of the competition and apply to both new build and existing nuclear power plant.
Construction, installation and commissioning
Operation and maintenance
High Value Manufacturing
Waste, decommissioning and storage
Open theme (eg includes Small Modular Reactors)
It is envisaged that the competition will attract numerous cross-cutting and innovative technologies that could be developed or adapted for the above themes from areas such as; materials, processing & joining, NDE, condition monitoring, robotics, remote handling, sensors, electronics, chemistry and many others. We welcome and encourage technology transfer proposals from other sectors.
Details of the Collaborative R&D competition
Details of the Feasibility study competition
At these two links, on the right hand side of the pages you will find details of:
The full competition brief , key dates and guidance for applicants documents;
Registration for Brokering events at Manchester (21 January) and Penrith (12 February) where you can look for and meet potential partners from large and small businesses and academia and briefly present your project ideas. You will also hear from the nuclear sector about their R&D needs and SMEs who will share their experience of working with the TSB and showcase their innovation from previous projects.
Registration for a Competition briefing event in London (or live by webinar) on 19 March where you will hear full details of the scope of the competition, the application process and how to maximise your chances of success
We recommend all potential applicants to attend these events wherever possible. It is particularly important that people attend the Competition Briefing event as funding rules have recently changed and are more attractive for businesses, particularly those working with research organisations.
Developing the civil nuclear power supply chain
DECC co-founded a competition with InnovateUK, NDA and EPSRC to stimulate innovation in the civil nuclear power sector. The competition ran from 2 July to 4 October 2012. Read more about the competition.
Invitation to tender for nuclear innovation investment analysis
Investment decisions need to be evidence-based to ensure public money is used in the most cost-effective manner and will deliver maximal benefit. To prioritise investment DECC wants to analyse where, how, and to what extent investment across the nuclear life cycle will deliver benefit to the UK.
This work will help to define specific R&D programmes and/or capital investment that will unlock significant benefits for the UK.
DECC issued an Invitation to tender for this work on the Contracts Finder website.
Advanced reactors and fuel cycle reports
DECC’s work includes considering how the UK energy system might evolve in the future and the roles that different types of energy generation may play in it. This may include new designs of nuclear reactors and new types of fuel.
Most of the world’s nuclear power reactors tend to run on uranium fuel, be cooled by water and, in order to sustain the heat-giving nuclear reaction in the reactor core, they must slow down the neutrons that the fuel emits. However, there are a range of reactor designs in various stages of development that differ from these and that may offer advantages over currently available reactor systems. Some of these also offer the possibility of using thorium, rather than uranium as a fuel, which also may offer desirable characteristics.
These reports aim to consider a range of advanced reactor systems and fuel cycles, to offer insight into their potential advantages and disadvantages and to highlight some of the challenges to developing them.
The findings should be seen as a preliminary analysis of technological potential and are not intended as an exhaustive review. Additionally, they do not aim to include the influence of market and policy drivers in the future, which would determine whether the technological characteristics might deliver real-world advantages. These influences would include changes in demand for energy, the level of worldwide uptake of nuclear power, developments in nuclear waste disposal technology and the growth of other energy generation sources.
Review of metrics relevant to reactor systems - the definition and selection of the characteristics being considered in these reports
Assessment of advanced reactor systems against UK performance metrics - an assessment of the reactor types against aggregated ‘scorecards’, offering a combined view of these characteristics. Advanced technologies are compared against the typical current reactor types
Comparison of thorium and uranium fuel cycles - an assessment of how the use of uranium and thorium fuels compare within these reactors
Offshore Wind Component Technologies Development and Demonstration scheme
Fourth call for offshore wind innovation closed in June 2013
The fourth round of DECC’s offshore wind innovation funding competition closed to further applications on 15 June 2013.
The decision to close the scheme slightly early was taken in light of the budget position for the Scheme which reflected both the funding already committed to offshore wind innovation projects and the applications received to date in the fourth round.
Closed schemes (still current)
Heat Networks Demonstration Small Business Research Initative (SBRI)
The Heat Networks Demonstration SBRI competition aimed to stimulate innovation that will help address cost and performance efficiency challenges related to heat networks.
Key objectives of this scheme were:
to support the deployment of low carbon heat networks out to 2050
to demonstrate the successful integration of innovative technologies and techniques on heat networks
to provide real world evidence on reducing costs and improving energy efficiencies
to improve the customer experience of heat networks; and
to increase DECC’s understanding of heat network innovators and the heat network technology supply chain
Key dates:
Competition opened – 2 October 2014
Deadline for proposals – 28 November 2014
Phase 1 projects started – January 2015
Phase 2 projects started – April/May 2015
NER300 - EU Funding Mechanism for Renewables Demonstration Projects: Second call for proposals
On 3 April 2013, the European Commission published its Call for Proposals for the second round of New Entrant Reserve (NER) funding. The NER300 is a common fund of 300 million EU ETS allowances set aside for supporting about 8 CCS and 34 renewable energy projects. DECC put together guidance for potential UK applicants for renewable demonstration projects.
further details are available from the European Commission website
DECC’s NER guidance
The Call closed on 20 June 2013.
DECC energy storage innovation competition
12 organisations have been awarded nearly £0.5million to carry out phase 1 feasibility studies into innovative and diverse energy storage ideas under the under Energy Storage Technology Demonstration Competition. The Energy Storage Technology Demonstration Competition is part of the Small Business Research Initiative, a pre commercial procurement scheme run by the Technology Strategy Board. The competition is being funded and run by DECC and it aims to encourage the development of innovative, pre-commercial energy storage technologies that can address grid-scale storage and balancing needs in the UK electricity network.
DECC will invite some of the innovators who won funding under the Energy Storage Technology Demonstration Competition to take part in the second, demonstration phase of this competition later in 2013, with up to £17 million available in total to test designs on the ground by the end of March 2015.
Details of the Phase 1 winners are summarised in the following document:
Energy Storage Technology Demonstration Competitions – Summary of Phase 1 Winners
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Component research and feasibility study scheme
Four organisations have won a share of £1.5million under the first round of the energy storage systems component research and feasibility studies competition. The winning companies will use the funding to improve components or materials used for energy storage systems or to develop feasibility studies to explore how storage systems work and how they can be used in the UK electricity network.
The bids were assessed against a range of criteria including the technical specification, value for money and potential for commercialisation. DECC announced the winners from the second round of this scheme in 2013.
Details of these first round winners are summarised in the following document:
Energy Storage Component Research and Feasibility Study Competition – Summary of 1st Call Winners
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Further information
An online group for the storage competitions, organised by the Energy Generation and Supply Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), can be accessed from the Connect: Energy Storage Group web page.
Invest in Innovative Refurb programme
In September 2011, the Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change announced that up to £35 million innovation funding would be earmarked to support the development and demonstration of innovative technologies and systems that can reduce carbon emissions from buildings. Of this £35 million, £10 million was allocated to a competition to reduce the risk and cost of innovative technologies or processes that can demonstrate significant energy and carbon savings in non-domestic buildings (which currently comprise 18% of the UK’s carbon emissions).
The Invest in Innovative Refurb programme was launched on 30 April 2012 and was run in 2 tranches by InnovateUK. Each tranche includes a Phase 1 design and Phase 2 demonstration phase. It will introduce new energy efficient technologies and processes for the low-carbon refurbishment of existing non-domestic buildings.
Generation technologies are not in the scope of this competition but will be supported in other innovation schemes such as the Energy Entrepreneur’s Fund Scheme. Funded activities must support the installation and demonstration of innovative equipment, systems or processes that directly impact technology performance.
The scheme seeks to address a lack of product and systems innovation in the energy efficient refurbishment of these buildings and aims to demonstrate a greater range of options and their value proposition. The competition supported the assessment of innovative products that could potentially be certified under regulated assessment frameworks for inclusion under the Green Deal.
Background analysis to the programme’s context is available in the Non-domestic buildings TINA from the Low Carbon Innovation Co-ordination Group.
The Marine Energy Array Demonstrator (MEAD) scheme
In June 2011 DECC announced it was investing up to £20 million in the MEAD scheme to support the development of marine energy technologies, subject to value for money assessments.
MEAD closed to applications in June 2012, with final awards being made early in 2013 for project commencement in 2013.
Aims of the MEAD scheme
The MEAD scheme will support up to 2 pre-commercial projects to demonstrate the operation of wave and/or tidal devices in array formation for an extended period of time. By supporting the sector as it moves from single device prototypes to first arrays of full-scale devices, the MEAD will build confidence in the technology as a viable option to produce bulk electricity and in its potential contribution to the long-term deployment of renewable energy.
Award of MEAD funds will be subject to prior State Aid approval. DECC is applying for State Aid clearance for the scheme and will seek clearance to cumulate the grant funding with the relevant government revenue support.
Eligibility for the MEAD scheme
To encourage technology acceleration in marine energy this call focused on those projects that meet the following eligibility criteria:
the array must expect to generate at least 7 gigawatts (GWh) per year when complete and must include at least 3 generating devices. We expect this to equate to a capacity factor of at least 3MW
larger arrays at or in excess of 10GWh annual energy production will be assessed more favourably and we expect to support arrays of between 5MW and 10MW nameplate capacity
the technology used must have been previously demonstrated at full-scale in real-sea conditions with comparable resource to the project site and using devices of equivalent design and scale to those to be installed in the MEAD project
the technology used in the MEAD project must be manifestly similar in scale and concept to devices that will be installed in future commercial arrays
project planning must be underway such that the complete project can be energised by 31 March 2016 at the latest. At the time of application:
the project site must have an in-principle grid-connection lined up, with connection to have been completed before 31 March 2016
the project must hold an agreement for lease for a wave and/or tidal array at the site from the relevant leasing body (probably The Crown Estate)
application for planning consents must be well underway, with at least a formal scoping letter from the relevant consenting body or bodies available at the application date - to achieve this we expect that baseline environmental monitoring will have already commenced.
the project site must be entirely within UK territorial waters and must supply electricity to the UK grid
arrays awarded MEAD funding are expected to operate for a minimum of 2 years. (Although we expect arrays to operate for up to 20 years, and to provide a commercial return based on sale of electricity and revenue support)
Pre-submission briefing
A pre-submission briefing was held in London on 2 May 2012 to provide applicants with further information on the purpose of the scheme, project scope, eligibility criteria and to answer any questions in relation to this call. You can download the following material presented at the briefing:
MEAD Pre Submission Briefing Q&A
(PDF, 28KB, 3 pages)
MEAD Pre Submission Briefing presentation
(PDF, 309KB, 21 pages)
Offshore wind: Component Technologies Development and Demonstration scheme
5 November 2012: third call for offshore wind innovation
A briefing event for these new offshore energy competitions was held in London in November 2012. You can download the presentation slides:
Briefing
(PDF, 7.89MB, 118 pages)
This scheme has closed to applications. For reference, documents relevant to the application process are available for download as follows:
Third call for proposals: guidance notes
Third call for proposals: Application form
Simple levelised cost of energy model
Related competitions
In parallel with the third call of the Component Technologies Scheme, 2 related competitions were launched to stimulate innovation in the UK offshore wind sector and to strengthen the supply chain.
Wetland biomass to bio-energy competition
DECC launched a SBRI competition to develop and demonstrate a bioenergy process that optimises wetland management activities and utilises the biomass arisings.
This scheme aimed to increase the availability of renewable, sustainable bioenergy whilst addressing the challenges of wetland management and avoiding conflicts with alternative uses of land such as food or housing.
Specific objectives included:
optimisation of wetland management processes across challenging UK sites
demonstration of an efficient feedstock conversion technology that utilises wetland biomass arisings
integration of harvesting and conversion processes into an efficient cost effective system that can be used by regional land owners across the UK and that will provide energy either locally or nationally
The three-phase scheme initially enabled contractors to develop their ideas into detailed project plans with projected life cycle assessments. Three contractors were further awarded funding to go into Phase 2 to progress their innovative ideas into technology demonstrators, and conclude their projects in Phase 3. The following seven reports include four Phase 1 reports and three Phase 3 reports for those that were supported at demonstration phase.
Wetland Biomass to Bioenergy phase 1 reports
Phase 1 report - Adapt
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