Key Features
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £140 million to demonstrate battery and hydrogen fuel cell trucks.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £140 million
Opens: 15th Aug 2022
Closes: 12th Oct 2022
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department for Transport to invest up to £140 million in innovation projects. As part of the Zero Emission Road Freight (ZERFT) Demonstration programme, this competition will focus on the largest heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). The programme will support government’s commitment to end sales of all new, non-zero emission HGVs by 2040 and enable continued cross border freight.
The aim of this competition, as part of the Zero Emission Road Freight Demonstration programme, is to focus on the largest heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).
Innovate UK expect to fund up to 5 demonstrations covering all technologies that are in scope, across the three strands of this competition. We are looking for projects that include multiple vehicle and infrastructure suppliers and that demonstrate a wide range of duty cycles with multiple freight operators.
The programme will fund costs associated with project delivery, vehicle access and recharging or refuelling infrastructure during the period from when the project starts, up until 31 March 2025. All vehicles and infrastructure funded must be demonstrated for 5 years.
Innovate UK encourages and is particularly interested in proposals with micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) collaborative involvement.
This strand will fund multi-year on-road combined demonstrations of battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) as part of your standard freight operations.
Your project’s size must enable a demonstration of at least 40 trucks split between at least 4 operators and supported by at least 3 recharging or hydrogen refuelling locations. Your application must meet this scale and have a grant funding request of between £30 million and £140 million.
Your proposal must:
Demonstration-specific requirements
You must:
International freight operations are acceptable, but we will not fund infrastructure or operations originating outside the UK.
Vehicle-specific requirements
You must:
Infrastructure-specific requirements
You must:
Projects can use existing or planned infrastructure where it is compatible with their demonstration and appropriate for long haul HGVs.
Innovate UK encourage projects to demonstrate links to other initiatives, such as the OFGEM Strategic Innovation Fund and the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund. We may prioritise hydrogen projects that have a focus on the Tees valley area.
You can propose a demonstration using a proportion of vehicles that are not type approved or are produced by an organisation with an annual production intent of less than 500 vehicles. The following limits are set:
You must provide a clear justification that this approach allows you to demonstrate best in class technology, maximise UK content, and that production can be scaled to enable rapid deployment of the core technology.
Your project must:
Your project must have a total grant funding request between £30 million and £140 million
You must only include eligible project costs in your application.
To lead a project your organisation must:
If the lead organisation is an RTO it must collaborate with 2 or more businesses.
Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
Non-UK businesses can apply to this competition in reference to activities they are considering undertaking in the UK. The business must be registered in the UK before any funding can be awarded.
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
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 into the Innovation Funding Service.
To be eligible as a collaboration the lead and at least one other organisation must claim grant funding.
Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
Innovate UK are not funding projects that:
Up to £140 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 eligible capital costs. These costs must be listed separately in your application.
If successful you will not be able to:
The programme will fund costs associated with your project during the period from when the project starts up until 31 March 2025, with all vehicles funded to be demonstrated for 5 years.
The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to:
Your proposal must demonstrate value for money and your grant funding request must be the minimum needed to make your project viable.
Innovate UK encourage you to align your funding spend against this profile where possible:
Innovate UK are collecting this information to help financial forecasting at Innovate UK and the Department for Transport. If you are assessed as eligible for funding, we will take your answer into consideration during our competition portfolio review.
Innovate UK will work with successful projects to enable funding to be claimed and drawn down, to support interim payments defined as part of key commercial agreements between project participants and suppliers. If successful you will be required to evidence commercial agreements with suppliers and draw down the grant according to milestones and terms stated within the agreement.
Funding for the project can only be claimed up until 31 March 2025.
Research and development costs
If the majority of your organisation’s R&D work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request to support these costs 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:
Capital costs
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.
Funding cannot be used to reduce the total cost of freight operations below the cost of diesel vehicle operations. You will have to submit details of your capital costs as part of your application.
You could get funding for your eligible project capital costs for the duration of the project up until 31 March 2025 of up to 80% of your investment into:
You will have to provide a cost breakdown for this in your application. For further information on Capital Costs, please see competition guidance.
Research participation
The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 5% of the total grant funding requested. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them.
Of that 5% you could get funding for your eligible R&D project costs of up to:
Within that 5% you could also get funding for your eligible capital project costs of up to 80% subject to the capital cost funding rules.
Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.