Direct air capture technologies a major winner, as government announces fresh funding boost for UK clean tech developers
Carbon capture technologies, energy efficiency innovators, and clean tech start-ups are all set to benefit from a £116m government funding boost aimed at accelerating the UK’s green industrial revolution, generating green jobs, and delivering on the country’s net zero goals.
The government today announced over £116m of new funding is to be split between three streams designed to help businesses develop new green technologies.
“This £116m government investment will support businesses across the nation to turn their green ideas into reality, and to develop ground-breaking projects that save energy, slash utility bills and tackle pollution,” said Greg Hands, Energy and Climate Change Minister.
“British businesses and entrepreneurs are already leading the world with innovative solutions to tackling climate change. This is not only good for the planet, but will bring new jobs and investment across the UK.”
The largest share of the funding – £64m – has been funnelled into the Direct Air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removal programme, which provides funding for projects developing carbon capture and emissions removal technologies. The latest tranche of funding is for the second phase of the programme, which is set to be used to help take design projects from Phase 1 of the programme through to the demonstration stage, with a view to enabling commercial scale deployments from 2025.
The government hopes that the new funding will help the technologies attract further private investment, as interest in direct air capture and other forms of negative emissions technologies continues to grow.
The government also announced £30m has been awarded to companies through the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund. The funding round will offer 58 small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) grants to develop energy efficiency, storage, and clean power and heat generation technologies.
The government had previously promised £11m for the next phase of the fund, but today confirmed an extra £19m owing to “the large number of exceptional high-quality applications that were made”.
The final share of the £116m of funding announced today will see £22.8m invested in business development support services for the SMEs developing projects through BEIS’s £1bn Net Zero Innovation Portfolio. The Carbon Trust will lead expert organisations in offering advice to businesses in the portfolio.
Technical support will also be provided through the Technical Third Party Support (TTPS) project, which will see expertise in technological coordination, social research, carbon control and storage, energy consumption, generation and distribution offered to key projects in the Portfolio.
