£7.6 million to explore renewable heating technologies

Three projects have been awarded  funding from Innovate UK to research and develop more sustainable solutions for heating.

Addressing the fact that 23% of total emissions in the UK is generated from heating our 30 million buildings, Innovate UK ran a competition, Design Engineering Innovation Lab, to invest in the development of innovative renewable heating technologies that can be scaled across the UK.

Innovate UK were looking for proposals that reduced capital and installation costs across the whole system of net zero renovation, such as the fabric of the building and decarbonised heat technologies.

Organisations competing for a place, included energy suppliers, technology providers, research organisations and community interest groups.

Three of eight ideas produced by the innovation lab secured a total of £7,615,622 in grant support.

Let Zero, which is led by South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, has been awarded funding of £2.4m.

Let Zero will work with landlords in the private sector to improve decision-making on renovations and improvements in their properties for the benefit of their tenants, especially vulnerable people.

The 18-month project will develop an end-to-end solution, powered by AI, to give landlords a ‘trusted path’ for upgrading their properties, tailored to the needs of the occupants.

While to be tested in South Yorkshire, has the potential to be scalable across the UK.

Transform-ER is a project led by Energiesprong UK, which has secured £3.3 million for its project that aims to help deliver retrofit solutions to one million homes per year by 2030.

The current retrofit market doesn’t have the capacity or capability needed and this project brings a fresh approach.

Transform-ER will embrace the move towards offsite construction to enable rapid deployment of high-quality retrofit solutions.

The project will provide interoperability rules for new products, enabling kits of parts to be brought together.

A ‘retrofit rulebook’ will also be developed, which will write up the activities in the project as case studies.

It will also set out clear guidance for other industry innovators and those wishing to join the retrofit revolution.

Elemental Power received £1.9 million for a project that aims to transform how retrofits are carried out on non-domestic buildings in the UK.

From using immersive ‘digital twins’ to test and simulate real conditions, to using local renewable energy solutions, building owners will be provided with the information needed to make the best upgrade decisions.