Notice

Scope of Phase 3 of the Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) programme (closed to applications)

Updated 19 April 2023

Background

Phase 3 of the £10 million BEIS Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) programme will provide around £8 million of grant funding, to support the development and industrial scale demonstration of innovative technologies, which have the potential to reduce energy consumption, maximise resource efficiency, and cut greenhouse gas emissions, within any industrial sector. Phase 3 follows on from Phase 1 and 2 of the IEEA programme, which ran between 2015 and 2021, as part of the BEIS Energy Innovation Programme.

As highlighted in the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy (published March 2021), UK industry accounted for 16% of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2018. The strategy sets out ambitions for decarbonising industry in line with net zero, with expectations that emissions need to fall by around two thirds by 2035 and at least 90% by 2050. The strategy identified energy and resource efficiency as having an important role in helping industry transition towards a low carbon economy, whilst the Energy Innovation Needs Assessment highlighted industrial efficiency improvements, recovery and recycling, and heat recovery as areas of opportunity for innovation.

The main objective of the IEEA programme is thus to contribute towards these ambitions, by supporting partnerships between technology developers and industrial companies, to facilitate innovation and increase the number of energy efficient technologies available to industry.

This competition forms part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP), which will run between 2021 and 2025.

Scope of the call

The IEEA programme aims to support the development and demonstration of innovative industrial efficiency technologies, which help to reduce energy consumption, maximise resource efficiency, and cut carbon emissions. Projects must align with industrial decarbonisation (net zero) ambitions.

Grant funding will be competitively awarded to projects that can install and test innovative energy efficiency technologies on an industrial site, to prove that they work at scale in a real industrial setting. Projects may be applicable to any industrial sector and must include an industrial partner that will demonstrate the technology at their UK site, and (usually) a technology developer that has developed the new technology. Other project partners, such as research organisations, universities, specialist technology suppliers, and consultants, may be included in a consortium.

Over two phases, grant funding of £150,000 to £1 million will typically be available for each successful project^{[footnote 1]}. Through this, successful applicants can typically expect to receive between 40-60% funding towards eligible project costs, with the remainder funded by the applicant(s). In addition to the grant funding, incubation support will also be provided to the accelerate commercial readiness of the technologies.

Technologies

Phase 3 of the IEEA programme will fund demonstrations of innovative energy and/or resource efficiency technologies at Technology Readiness Level 5 to 8 at the start of the project. The Call will be open to all UK industry sectors that can demonstrate either a novel technology, or the use of an established technology in a novel way, to result in a reduction in carbon emissions, through decreases in energy consumption and/or improvements in resource efficiency.

Expression of Interest

This competition will be run by the Carbon Trust, who will act as the delivery partner on behalf of BEIS. For further information about the competition and to register your interest, please visit the IEEA website.

Further information

Read further information on previous phases of the Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) and related projects.

1. 1 Grant funding below £150,000 or in excess of £1 million may be available for exceptional projects. ↩