Infrastructure solutions for zero emission vehicles

Overview

The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV), formerly Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV), are investing up to £17 million in support of solutions that address challenges associated with the uptake of zero emission vehicles in this programme.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to fund innovative infrastructure solutions, that support the transition to zero emission vehicles (ZEV), in line with the Government’s transport decarbonisation ambitions.

This competition seeks to support feasibility studies and research and development projects addressing one or more of the ZEV infrastructure challenges listed in the specific themes.

Projects must:

• develop infrastructure solutions which can be deployed at scale within 5 years
• develop sustainable infrastructure solutions for ZEV at low cost without compromising safety or capability
• show a clear route to market including end users and appropriate business models to exploit the technology commercially
• show that you can realistically produce the technology at a price the market is willing to pay when commercialising
• show how the future supply chain will be developed.
• consider advanced approaches to manufacturing at the target scale
• deliver a clear plan to trial the solution in an appropriate setting at a later date, including location plans, use cases, resources and planning considerations
• deliver a final report summarising the project’s achievements
• deliver appropriate dissemination activities

Specific Themes

Your application must focus on at least one of the following infrastructure challenges.

Challenge 1 – Improve public residential charging in urban areas

Solutions which target ZEV infrastructure needs close to home for the high proportion of urban residents without access to off-street parking e.g. tower blocks and terraced houses.

Challenge 2 – Improve rural charging

Tackling the energy and communication infrastructure barriers in rural areas which affect residents’ adoption and visitors’ use of ZEV in remote locations or recreational sites.

Challenge 3 – Improving fleet charging solutions

Supporting the adoption of ZEV in fleets of cars and vans with different user requirements, infrastructure constraints and opportunities. Use-cases such as delivery services, home services, emergency services and passenger transport etc are all in scope for this challenge.

Challenge 4 – Enhance the ZEV user infrastructure experience

Improving ZEV mobility by making infrastructure solutions easier to use, including accessibility for disabled or elderly users, availability and payment mechanisms.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding:

• projects which do not address at least one of the four ZEV infrastructure challenges
• projects that develop vehicle-based technology
• projects which address charging of personal mobility scooters or similar, off-highway lightweight 4×4 or recreational vehicles such as buggies and quads
• projects which provide maritime, aviation or rail sector solutions
• charging of factory-based vehicles i.e. forklift trucks
• business as usual projects
• charging of on-highway and off-highway vehicles in categories N (> 3.5tonnes), O (trailers for HGVs), T (agricultural), G (off-road) vehicles will be out of scope
• projects that are dependent on export performance
• projects that are dependent on domestic inputs usage

Eligibility

Your project must:

• have total eligible costs between £300,000, and £800,000
• start by 1 August 2021
• end by 31 March 2022

Innovate UK will not approve project extensions beyond 31 March 2022. You can only claim funding for project costs incurred up to 31 March 2022.

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• collaborate with other UK registered businesses, academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation, research organisations, or research and technology organisation (RTO)
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business, academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation, research organisations, or research and technology organisation (RTO)
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition and must be selected through a participant’s normal procurement process. Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK or European Economic Area (EEA).

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

Innovate UK will not award you funding if you have:

• failed to exploit a previously funded project
• an overdue independent accountant’s report
• failed to comply with grant terms and conditions

Funding Costs

Innovate UK have allocated up to £10million to fund innovation projects in this competition.

If your organisation’s work on the project is mostly commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically.

For feasibility studies and 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

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.