Infrastructure solutions for zero emission vehicles

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £10million to develop infrastructure solutions that address challenges associated with the transition to zero emission vehicles.

Opportunity Details

When

Registration Opens

15/03/2021

Registration Closes

21/04/2021

Award

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £300,000 and £800,000. Up to 70% of costs can be covered.

Organisation

OZEV

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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.

The aim of this competition is to fund innovative infrastructure solutions that support this 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 that address one or more of the following infrastructure challenges:

  • improve public residential charging in urban areas
  • improve rural charging
  • improving fleet charging solutions
  • enhance the ZEV user charging experience

Parallel competition strands hosted on the Innovation Funding Service address the on-vehicle challenges associated with the uptake of ZEVs:

It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure they apply for the correct competition.

Your project must:

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

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

Projects may include end users or infrastructure owners, such as local authorities and fleet operators (public and private), and stakeholders such as distribution network operators (DNOs), infrastructure providers, energy providers, hardware and software providers.

Projects can cover infrastructure solutions for both niche and mainstream on-road vehicles under 3.5 tonnes in categories L (mopeds and motorcycles only), M (passenger) and N (goods).

Infrastructure solutions for special use vehicles such as emergency vehicles, (e.g., ambulances, fire engines), refuse collection vehicles and recreational vehicles (e.g. motorhomes) will also be in scope.

If you are unsure whether your vehicle is included in the special use vehicles, please contact support@innovateuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closing date.

We want to fund a portfolio of projects, across a variety of ZEV use cases, infrastructure technologies, markets, technological maturities and research categories. OZEV and Innovate UK reserve the right to prioritise projects within specific themes where necessary.

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

You must clearly identify the primary challenge for assessment purposes. Your solution can cover several challenges but will be assessed against the primary challenge selected.

Examples for each infrastructure challenge are in ‘Supporting Information’.

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.

An online briefing event was held at 10am on Friday 12th March: the recording will appear here when available.

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