Faraday Battery Challenge Round 6 Innovation Feasibility Studies

Key Features

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £10 million for innovation in battery technologies for electrification. This funding is from the Faraday Battery Challenge.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £10 million

Opens: 16th May 2023

Closes: 12th Jul 2023

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £10 million in innovation projects across the two strands of this competition. This funding is from the Faraday Battery Challenge (FBC).

Scope

The Faraday Battery Challenge (FBC) aims to ensure:

  • the UK automotive sector meets its net zero commitments in the required timescale, by enabling the development and scale-up of sustainable battery technologies
  • the UK prospers from a just and fair transition to electrification, by taking action to develop a world class intellectual and physical supply chain for batteries in the UK

The aims of this competition are to:

  • accelerate development and commercialisation of state of the art battery technologies in the UK
  • support growth of the supply chain and companies in the UK battery sector
  • increase UK competitiveness in the global battery industry
  • demonstrate ability of battery technologies to meet the needs of specific applications

Your project must balance specific technical, market, and business requirements for developing and emerging technologies, and enable UK competitiveness across the battery value chain.

You must demonstrate how your technology will address at least one of the following battery performance metrics:

  • reduce cost at the cell and pack level, as well as minimising manufacturing costs
  • increase energy density (Wh/kg) at cell and pack level
  • increase power density (W/kg) at cell and pack level
  • increase safety by reducing or eliminating thermal runaway risk
  • increase first life by lengthening cell and pack life
  • broaden the temperature ranges that a pack efficiently operates at
  • increase predictability by developing ways to better predict range and battery health
  • increase recyclability by designing for end-of-life or reuse and improving recycling techniques
  • increase sustainability by reducing carbon emissions, energy consumption and improving resource efficiency

Innovate UK are particularly interested in funding projects that will enable:

  • a competitive and sustainable nickel-rich UK battery supply chain
  • high performance, high-value, modest volume applications where UK has established and emerging strength
  • low cost, appropriate energy density solutions, at pack level, for applications requiring lower performance and low cost
  • greater than 350Wh/kg energy density at pack level
  • improved fast charge capability for specific applications
  • high cycle life and reduction of battery degradation
  • battery safety to enable higher performance
  • total end-to-end life-cycle sustainability, including reduction of energy consumption and carbon emissions, across the battery supply chain and throughout battery life
  • increased equipment manufacturing capability for state-of-the-art batteries within the UK
  • enhanced digital capability across the battery value chain, for example big data and AI for materials discovery, design optimisation and performance verification and digitisation of the end-to-end bill-of-process or of provenance and state

For feasibility studies we encourage applications that:

  • trial advanced and very novel battery technologies for the first time
  • exploit scientific advances from the Faraday Institution and wider research base
  • trial novel approaches, tools and methods
  • support trial and adaptation of existing materials, processes or equipment for application in battery technologies or the battery supply chain

Where this could have a transformational effect for example on cost, performance or sustainability.

Your project must target performance requirements for automotive applications. This includes:

  • on and off-highway vehicles
  • medium and heavy goods vehicles
  • passenger cars and vans
  • buses
  • motorsport
  • e-motorcycles

Your project can:

  • target applications with performance requirements that are related to automotive performance requirements
  • develop breakthrough technologies that have the potential for widespread sectoral adoption.

You must clearly demonstrate your understanding of the performance synergies and route to market in your application.

Specific Themes

Your project must focus on one or more areas of the battery value chain:

  • raw materials
  • cell materials and cell components
  • modules, packs, battery management systems and their components
  • recycling and second life

Your project activities may require one of the following:

  • an Environmental Permit (England and Wales)
  • an Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland and Northern Ireland) Permit
  • a Waste Management Licence (Scotland and Northern Ireland)
  • compliance with the Waste Battery and Accumulator Regulations (UK)

Innovate UK will fund feasibility projects, as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have total costs between £100,000 and £750,000
  • start on 1 November 2023
  • end by 31 October 2024
  • last between 3 and 12 months
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.

To lead a project your organisation must:

  • be a UK registered business of any size
  • collaborate with other UK registered organisations
  • be or involve at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

  • business of any size
  • academic institution
  • charity
  • not for profit
  • public sector organisation
  • research and technology organisation (RTO)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs and complete their own Project impact questions into the Innovation Funding Service.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

  • business of any size
  • academic institution
  • charity
  • not for profit
  • public sector organisation
  • research and technology organisation (RTO)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs and complete their own Project impact questions into the Innovation Funding Service.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractors are not considered to be collaborators.

Subcontractors should be used to procure products or services to enhance the project and should not be used in substitution of genuine collaboration.

Projects with excessive numbers of subcontractors in a project which does not represent genuine collaboration will not be funded.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.

You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

A UK registered business, can lead and be included as a collaborator on any number of applications.

An academic institution, RTO, charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can collaborate on any number of applications.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition. It is expected that previously submitted applications will be suitable for the timeframe of this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:

  • research projects or projects which are academic intensive​
  • business as usual R&D projects​
  • non-collaborative projects ​
  • projects with over reliance on subcontracting
  • aiming to secure funding for capital equipment as a primary focus​
  • not demonstrating considerations of the cost, market and business requirements of the technology​
  • focussed on off-vehicle charging
  • focussing on physical system integration of battery technologies for example into vehicles or energy storage systems

Innovate UK cannot fund projects that are:

  • dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Funding Costs

Up to £10 million has been allocated, across both strands of this competition, to fund innovation projects. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

Feasibility studies

For feasibility studies, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 50% if you are a large organisation

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 50% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 50% you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

  • 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
  • 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation

Interested in applying for this competition?

Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.