Hydrogen Transport Hub Demonstration Phase 2 - Strand 1

Overview

The Department for Transport will work with Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, to invest up to £20 million for innovative projects.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to demonstrate the use and refuelling of hydrogen for transport vehicles, while securing a sustainable demand of hydrogen from operators.

Demonstrations will test business models and user operating needs to inform ongoing adoption of hydrogen within Tees Valley and across the UK.

Innovate UK are looking for projects that will significantly increase the demand for hydrogen transport and to support the development of the Tees Valley Hydrogen Transport Hub.

Projects are required to demonstrate realistic scale in their demonstrations.

Projects which demonstrate non-passenger car vehicles are encouraged to apply. Projects which address use cases that are hard to decarbonise and are yet to demonstrated are also encouraged to apply.

Your project must:

be aligned to wider Tees Valley strategic priorities and integrate with other hydrogen activity in the region where feasible
commit to provide results and learnings from your project to reinforce the Hydrogen Transport Hub’s commitment to encouraging hydrogen adoption in the UK
agree to support the Hydrogen Transport Hub’s training and skills development remit where agreeable
integrate with the Tees Valley hydrogen cohort and network to be facilitated by the Hub
outline how post-March 2025 operations will transition into a commercially viable ongoing hydrogen fuelled transport activity or a larger deployment encompassing hydrogen production and its wider use beyond transport

For further information, please see guidance notes here

Specific Themes

Your project can focus on one or more of the following:

hydrogen fuel-cell transport of any size or designation
hydrogen combustion transport – please refer to the ‘Projects we will not fund’ section
road, maritime, rail, aviation transport
non-road mobile machinery, such as forklift trucks and construction machinery
agricultural and Forestry tractors
emergency and rapid response vehicles
special purpose vehicles

Eligibility

Your project must:

have total costs of between £500,000 and £8 million
start by 1 June 2023
end by 31 March 2025
last up to 22 months
include vehicle demonstration of at least 6 months
carry out 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 or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.

To lead a project your organisation must:

be a UK registered business of any size
collaborate with other UK registered businesses, academic institutions, charities, not for profit, public sector organisations, research organisations or research and technology organisations (RTO’s)

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

A business can lead or collaborate in any number of applications across the two strands of the competition.

An organisation can collaborate in any number of applications across the two strands of the competition.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:

exclusively outside of the Tees Valley
dual fuel vehicles which are not wholly zero emission, for example rely partly on fossil fuel
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) projects
heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) of 40 tonne or above
dedicated technology development projects which do not have the required demonstration
not intended to lead to commercial activity after the project end date
infrastructure projects related to hydrogen generation
desk based studies into a future demonstration outside of the demonstration period
dependent on export performance
dependent on domestic inputs usage

Innovate UK are also not funding projects that are Hydrogen combustion, where the transport application falls into the one or more of the following classifications:

light commercial vehicles under 7.5t, category N, O 1 to 3
buses of any weight or size classification, category M2 and M3
motor caravan, campervan, motorhome
lorries (trucks), 2 axels or more with a maximum gross weight (tonnes) of 7.5 or above
special purpose vehicle including emergency response vehicles

Funding Costs

Up to £20 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

You can request funding for your eligible project research and development (R&D) costs and capital costs. These costs must be listed separately in your application. If successful you will not be able to:

reassign capital costs to R&D costs
reassign R&D costs to capital costs
increase the amount or proportion of grant funding you are requesting for capital costs or non-capital costs

The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to:

adjust the funding allocations between the two competition strands
apply a ‘portfolio’ approach

If the majority of your organisation’s R&D 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.

For industrial research projects, 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

For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation
up to 25% if you are a large organisation

Your application can include the purchase of capital equipment as an eligible project cost for large-scale demonstration projects. Investments must be relevant to the project and the maximum intervention rate on these purchases is up to 80% grant for the duration of the project up until 31 March 2025 for all organisations.

Your eligible capital costs must be the costs of the construction, installation or upgrade of the refuelling infrastructure.

These may include:

the costs of the refuelling infrastructure itself
installation of upgrades to other components that are required for connecting to a local hydrogen production or storage unit
related technical equipment
civil engineering works
land or road adaptations
installation costs
costs for obtaining related permits

The costs of local production or storage units generating or storing the hydrogen and the costs of local hydrogen production units are excluded.

You will have to provide a cost breakdown for this in your application.

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% 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 30% 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

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Hydrogen Transport Hub Demonstration Phase 2 – Strand 1