Funding competition SBRI competition - Modernising Energy Data Applications phase 1

Organisations can apply for a share of £750,000, inclusive of VAT, to develop data applications that help to address core challenges faced in the UK.

This competition is now closed.

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Competition sections

Description

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition funded by UKRI, and sponsored by BEIS and Ofgem. The aim of the competition is to develop data applications that address the challenges faced by organisations and individuals to deliver net zero local energy systems.

The data-driven applications must facilitate progress towards net zero local energy systems whilst improving people’s lives, by combining energy data with data from other sectors. The outputs should benefit the users of local energy systems and provide scalable commercial opportunities to the funded organisation.

This is phase 1 of a 2-phase competition.

Only successful applicants from phase 1 will be able to apply to take part in phase 2.

A separate application as well as expert panel interview will be required for applicants for the phase 2 competition.

Phase 1: research and development contracts, feasibility study

The first phase involves research and development (R&D) contracts being awarded to demonstrate technical feasibility of the proposed solution. Including capturing users views on the proposed service, as well as evaluation of the benefits towards costs, decarbonisation, user experience and governance. A total of up to £750,000, inclusive of VAT, is allocated to this phase.

Feasibility study R&D contracts can be up to to £150,000 per project, inclusive of VAT. This is for each project for up to 3 months.

We expect to fund up to 6 projects. The assessors will consider fair value in making their evaluation.

We welcome bids from single organisations, who may choose to work alone or with other organisations and sector specialists as subcontractors.

Successful applicants from phase 1 will be invited to apply for phase 2.

Phase 2: research and development contracts, prototype development and testing (only upon successful completion of Phase 1)

The second phase will award up to 3 R&D contracts. Up to £420,000, inclusive of VAT, will be allocated for each contract, to develop a prototype and undertake field testing for up to 9 months.

The contract is completed at the end of phase 2, and the successful organisation is expected to pursue commercialisation of their solution.

Any adoption and implementation of a solution from this competition would be the subject of a separate, possible competitive, procurement exercise. This competition does not cover the purchase of any solution.

In applying to this competition you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the date of the deadline.

Funding type

Procurement

Project size

Projects can range in size up to total costs of £150,000, inclusive of VAT.

Who can apply

Your project

Projects are expected to start by 1 March 2021, end by 31 May 2021 and can last up to 3 months.

Applicant

To lead a project, you must:

  • be an organisation of any size
  • work alone or with other organisations as subcontractors
  • build upon the phase 2 work of the Modernising Energy Data Access (MEDA) competition winners

Contracts will be awarded only to the lead applicant. However, if you can justify subcontracting components of the work, you can employ specialist consultants, advisers or partnering organisations. This work will still be the responsibility of the lead applicant.

We encourage partnerships with academic institutions or research organisations, that facilitate applied development of emerging data and digital techniques including, but not limited to:

  • machine learning techniques
  • simulation environments
  • edge computing

Previously submitted applications

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

Funding

A total of up to £750,000, inclusive of VAT, is allocated to phase 1.

The feasibility study R&D contracts will be up to £150,000, inclusive of VAT, for each project for up to 3 months. We expect to fund up to 6 projects.

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

  • adjust the provisional funding allocations between the phases
  • apply a portfolio approach across multiple aspects including but not limited to technology, markets, business maturity, and geographies

Research and development

Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include initial prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards. Additional functionality and novel customisation of existing software is eligible.

R&D does not include:

  • commercial development activities such as quantity production
  • supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs
  • integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes

State aid

SBRI competitions involve procurement of R&D services at a fair market value and are not subject to state aid criteria that typically apply to grant funding.

Your proposal

The aim of this competition is to demonstrate that applications which combine data from multiple sectors can:

  • help individuals and organisations deliver net zero local energy systems
  • improve people’s lives, and
  • create business opportunities

You must build upon work with Modernising Energy Data Access (MEDA) competition winners.

Your application should demonstrate how the open source software solutions developed under the MEDA competition can facilitate better access and interoperability of energy data for innovators, by building upon the approaches developed through the MEDA projects.

MEDapps projects must:

  • demonstrate that by combining energy data with data from other sectors, solutions can be built that help accelerate the move towards net zero local energy systems that meet the needs of their users.
  • address the real world need of a user (organisation or persons) within a local energy system
  • meaningfully utilise one or more data sources from a sector other than the energy sector.

Sectors could include other infrastructure sectors such as (but not limited to):

  • telecommunications
  • water
  • transport, or
  • waste

and non-infrastructure sectors such as (but not limited to):

  • agriculture
  • social care
  • health

You must identify the challenge or problem that your project is going to investigate developing a solution for, showing preliminary evidence that this is a real world example that will help facilitate better living in a net zero energy ecosystem.

Your project must:

  • identify a credible use case that a solution would provide benefit against
  • demonstrate an agile approach using best in class tools, approaches and methodologies
  • use high quality user research and user experience techniques
  • show how you will implement good design thinking and processes from the outset
  • deliver your project using high quality user research and user experience techniques
  • ensure that solutions are flexible, minimising the burden of their being re-used, for example to accommodate ingestion of additional data sources or new functionality
  • use state of the art analytical techniques and methods for enriching data to gain information and insight, for example: data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence and/or statistical mathematics techniques
  • identify and design solutions that best utilise digital information exchange across the energy industry data ecosystem, and other sectors
  • foster innovation and lower information-related barriers to building upon the product or service you develop by increasing visibility of data and data processing methods, and ease of data access through your product or service
  • ensure datasets featuring different standards, formats and technologies can be combined, and be made to work together at minimum cost and complexity
  • ensure data is easy to work with and compatible with national reference data, related to the energy system (for instance from the Office for National Statistics or Land Registry)
  • produce open source outputs which can be utilised by both the energy industry and other sectors, whilst presenting opportunities for commercial exploitation
  • demonstrate how you are utilising diversity and inclusivity, both in your project delivery team and the users group you are designing a solution for
  • improve data quality so it is compatible with and contributes to national energy data ontology needs.

You must involve relevant public bodies such as:

  • DCMS
  • Centre for Digital Built Britain

You must involve relevant and interested private sector organisations in the modernising energy data landscape such as:

  • Energy Networks Association (ENA)
  • distribution network operators (DNOs)
  • transmission system operators (TSOs)

In phase 1 you must complete both discovery and alpha phases. In the discovery phase you must develop an understanding of:

  • your users and what they’re trying to achieve
  • the underlying problem or challenge that you are trying to address - this is the thing that your users want to change or make happen
  • any constraints you might face whilst developing your solution - for example because of the availability of assets (including data), technology or legislation
  • how to refine the product/service vision and strategy based on the research findings
  • opportunities to improve things - by sharing data with other teams, for example
  • what you will deliver during your alpha prototyping phase, how this will progress the topics above and what its criteria for success are.

For the alpha phase you must:

  • prototype and test different ideas
  • test your risks and validate how they could be mitigated
  • validate your prototypes/products/services with their users
  • develop a robust business case for a scalable product/service that could be developed as part of the Beta phase (phase 2)
  • demonstrate how the alpha measures of success have been met
  • deliver a plan for the Beta phase work, including criteria for its success

Only successful applicants from phase 1 will be able to apply for phase 2. We will monitor changes between your phase 1 and phase 2 submissions. We will not accept unjustified major changes between phase 1 and phase 2.

In phase 2 applicants must:

  1. Deliver a beta, which will include building a working private or live beta product or service based on your best idea from alpha
  2. Consider how your solution will integrate with (or start to replace) existing services and prepare for the transition to a live commercial solution.

In phase 1 you must define your goals and outline your plan for phase 2. This is part of the full commercial implementation in your phase 1 proposal. You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.

Specific themes

UKRI recently commissioned a project to investigate real-world challenges faced by stakeholders across UK energy systems, which identified the themes below as priorities.

  • joining up utilities through new business models
  • local decarbonisation to achieve net zero
  • public health
  • domestic energy and bills
  • large energy users
  • consumer vulnerability and fuel poverty
  • electric vehicles

This publication reports on the user research in full. It includes detail on themes, use cases, and specific user needs.

You may choose to develop a solution against one of these prioritised areas, or a different high priority use case that you have identified through your own research.

Research categories

Phase 1:
Technical feasibility studies

This means planned research or critical investigation to gain new knowledge and skills for developing new products, processes or services.

Prototype development and evaluation

This can include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions. The primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set.

Phase 2:
Further prototype development and evaluation

In phase 1 the supplier will work closely with the stakeholders to develop and test prototypes.

The outcome of phase 2 will be a private or public launch of the solution.

Projects we will not fund

We will not fund projects:

  • that do not explain how they will build upon the Modernising Energy Data Access (MEDA) solutions
  • that do not combine energy sector data with data sources from at least one other sector
  • that have not identified a lead customer and explained how they will be engaged as a key stakeholder during project development
  • for commercial development activities such as quantity production
12 October 2020
Competition opens
18 November 2020 11:00am
Competition closes
11 January 2021
Interview day 1
12 January 2021
Interview day 2
13 January 2021
Interview day 3
25 January 2021
Applicants notified

Before you start

By submitting an application, you agree to the terms of the draft contract which is available once you start your application. The final contract will include any details you have agreed with the funding authority will be sent to you if your application is successful. The contract is binding once the contract is returned by the applicant and signed by both parties. The terms and conditions included in the draft contract should not substantially change.

When you start an application, you will be prompted to create an account as the lead applicant or sign in as a representative of your organisation. You will need an account to track the progress of your application.

As the lead applicant you will be responsible for:

  • collecting the information for your application
  • representing your organisation in leading the project if your application is successful

You will be able to invite colleagues from your organisation and subcontractors to contribute to the application.

Your application is confidential. Innovate UK may share details of your application with BEIS and Ofgem, in keeping with our privacy notice. BEIS and Ofgem will also see your project’s progress reports and will be invited to the quarterly progress meetings.

What happens next

A selected panel of assessors will review your application. A portfolio selection approach will be applied to the top scoring applications, with around 10 projects invited to interview with an expert panel.

Final recommendations of projects to fund will be made by the expert panel.

Applicants will be expected to participate in an end of discovery and alpha phase to share their learnings, prototypes, and future plans.

At the end of Phase 1 you will have to submit a report covering the findings and progress of phase 1. This report will form part of the assessment for phase 2.

Interviews

If your online application is successful you will be invited to attend an interview, where you must give a presentation. Your interview will take place online week commencing 11 Jan 2021.

Before the interview, by the deadline stated in the invitation email, you:

  • must send a list of who will attend the interview
  • must send your interview presentation slides
  • can send a written response to the assessors’ feedback

List of attendees

Agree the list with your consortium. Up to 5 people from your project can attend. They must all be available on all published interview dates. We are unable to reschedule slots once allocated.

Presentation slides

Your interview presentation must:

  • use Microsoft PowerPoint
  • be no longer than 10 minutes
  • not include any video or embedded web links

You cannot change the presentation after you submit it or bring any additional materials to the interview.

Written response to assessor feedback

This is optional and is an opportunity to answer the assessors’ concerns. It can:

  • be up to 1 A4 page in a single PDF or Word document
  • include charts or diagrams

Interview

After your presentation the panel will spend 20 minutes asking questions. You will be expected to answer based on the information you provided in your application form, presentation and the response to feedback.

What we will ask you

The application is split into 3 sections:

  1. Project details.
  2. Application questions.
  3. Finances.

1. Project details

These sections are not scored.

Application details

The lead applicant must complete this section. Give your project’s title, start date and duration.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We collect and report on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) data to address under-representation in business innovation and ensure equality, diversity and inclusion across all our activities.

You must complete this EDI survey and then select yes in the application question. The survey will ask you questions on your gender, age, ethnicity and disability status. You will always have the option to ‘prefer not to say’ if you do not feel comfortable sharing this information.

Who made you aware of the competition?

Select a category from the list below to state who made you aware of the competition. You can only choose one.

How long has your organisation been established for?

What is your organisation’s primary area focus?

Project summary

Please provide a short summary of your project and describe how it meets the scope of the competition.

Describe your project briefly. Be clear about what makes it innovative and how it relates to the scope of the competition.

Give details of the lead organisation. Before you submit, we expect you to have discussed your application within your own organisation and any other relevant organisations.

List any organisations you have named as subcontractors.

Describe how your proposal meets the scope of the competition. How does it tackle different aspects of the challenge and how will it provide an integrated solution? If your application covers more than one theme, please state which other themes are applicable for your project.

Your answer for this section can be up to 800 words long.

This section is not scored, but we will use it to decide whether the project fits the scope of the competition. If it does not, it may be rejected.

Public description

Please provide a brief description of your project. If your application is successful, we will publish this description. This question is mandatory, but we will not assess this content as part of your application.

Describe your project in detail, and in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information. If we award your project funding, we will publish this description. This could happen before you start your project. We have the right to amend the description before publication if necessary but will consult you about any changes.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

2. Application questions

The assessors will score your answers to all these questions.

Your answer to each question can be up to 600 words long.

Do not include any URLs in your answers unless we have explicitly requested a link to a video.

Question 1. The opportunity

What is your understanding of the market opportunity with respect to utilising cross sectoral data to build solutions that deliver better net zero local energy systems.

Describe and explain:

  • the main motivation for the project
  • the work needed to stimulate wider market forces to deliver
  • the potential value to consumers
  • practices from other markets that the energy sector could use
  • the current state-of-the-art tools and processes, including those near market or in development, and their limitations and blockers
  • work you have already done to respond to this need and whether the project focuses on developing an existing capability or building a new one
  • the wider economic, social, environmental, cultural or political challenges which are influential in creating the opportunity, such as incoming regulations, using our Horizons tool if appropriate

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: ‘How compelling a business motivation there is for the project and is there a clear understanding of the nearest state-of-the-art approaches available?’

Question 2. The users

Who are the users of your innovation?

Describe or explain:

  • who the end-users that will benefit from your innovation are and your understanding of their needs
  • who the direct users that will work with your innovation are, and your understanding of their needs
  • who the wider stakeholders are, and your understanding of the market outcomes they seek
  • the relevant public bodies and energy sector organisations, and how will you involve them in your project

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: ‘How well are the users, their needs, and the process to be used to establish user needs understood.’

Question 3. Approach

What approach will you take to deliver your innovation successfully to market?

Tell us:

  • the main features that characterise your delivery practices
  • why these are effective for bringing needs driven innovation to market
  • what you need in place to be able to deliver effectively (the “entry criteria” for your work to begin)
  • how you are ensuring your entry criteria are met
  • your ‘exit criteria’ to demonstrably complete the next discovery and alpha phase of your work
  • your specific approach to agile working practices, including how you intend to conduct public or inclusive ‘show and tell’ presentations, including at the end of the first project phase
  • how your project will be carried out in a way that aids the implementation of circular economy principles, where applicable

We expect you to be flexible in the delivery of each phase in line with an agile approach to work, but please describe:

  • your project plan, in enough detail to identify any links or dependencies between work packages or milestones

You must submit an outline project plan or Gantt chart for phase 1 as an appendix.

Your milestones must be:

  • defined using SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria
  • associated with the appropriate deliverables and payments

It must be a PDF, no larger than 10MB and can be up to 1 A4 page long. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: Does the approach address the need, challenge or opportunity identified through user research?

Question 4. Capabilities

What capabilities (technology, process, and people) are required to conduct the next phase of work?

Describe:

  • the types of role and skills your team will need to deliver the next discovery and alpha phases of work
  • the resources, equipment and facilities your team needs to deliver the first phase of work
  • the main work packages of the project, indicating the lead subcontractor (where appropriate) assigned to each and the total cost of each
  • the management reporting lines
  • any vital external parties, including subcontractors, who you will need to work with to successfully carry out your project
  • the relationships between people working on the project, as well as with stakeholders, and how these will change as a result of the current project
  • roles you will need to recruit for and how you plan on ensuring recruitment does not block progress for your project

You can submit one appendix. This can include a short summary of the main people working on the project to support your answer. It must be a PDF and can be up to 2 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: How well has the applicant justified their ability to carry out the project and exploit the results?

Question 5: Technical demonstration

What is your current understanding of how your project might work within the existing technical data landscape? You might want to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the areas below, and how they apply to your project;

  • the frequency of data refresh across data sources
  • granularity and resolution of data
  • access privileges of different sources (shared, public, open)
  • master data management (MDM), such as data models, version control and slowly changing dimensions
  • utilising and reproducing existing data products available in the market and the capability to deliver these from their original source data and protocols
  • error resilience and software alternatives to data quality challenges
  • scalability, data availability and resilience of infrastructure, such as high-performance querying and visualisation across both geospatial and energy-specific criteria
  • interoperability of information across independently governed digital infrastructure, particularly referring to the ‘building blocks’ identified by the Energy Data Taskforce and aligned to the objectives of the Centre for Digital Built Britain.
  • standardised, well-documented and open source interfaces
  • the nature of outputs you anticipate the project might deliver alongside the core product or service (for example: reports, demonstrators, know-how, new process, products, service design) and how these help meet user needs

You can submit one appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB and can be up to 1 A4 page long. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: How clearly has the applicant described the ways in which the project might work within the existing technical data landscape, and how the solution might scale?

Question 6. Route to market

How are you going to encourage use of your innovation, grow the marketplace and realise consumer benefits into the long term? Describe or explain:

  • why your users would use or buy your product
  • what kind of supply or value chain you anticipate will be needed for successful growth of the market, and how will your project will help create the growth of that market
  • if you will be extending or establishing your market position
  • how your organisation is going to benefit from the innovation, such as in revenues, cost reduction, expertise and value adding services, or entry into other markets
  • how the innovation will affect your productivity and growth, in both the short and the long term
  • how you will ensure you and your market exploit the outputs of the project, whilst championing an open source approach
  • how you will encourage the sector to use your innovation to offer better data-related products and services to the market
  • your route to market, particularly if COVID-19 has changed market dynamics

If there is any academic or research organisation in the project team, describe:

  • how you will disseminate and share the results with the research community
  • how you expect to use the results generated from the project in further research activities

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: How compelling are the value propositions for users? Do they show credible routes to market, productivity and growth?

Question 7. Measuring impact

How do you expect to measurably demonstrate the market impact of your innovation? Describe and explain, using quantitative methods where possible:

  • the economic benefits resulting from the project to your users and any other parts of the supply chain, broader industry and the UK economy, such as productivity increases and import substitution
  • the impact on government priorities and any associated benefits with this
  • environmental impacts, either positive or negative
  • any expected regional impacts
  • the impacts on consumers (both individuals, and collectively)
  • the quantitative measures you expect to use

Describe the expected social impacts, either positive or negative on, for example:

  • quality of life
  • social inclusion or exclusion
  • jobs, such as safeguarding, creating, changing or displacing them
  • education
  • public empowerment
  • health and safety
  • regulations
  • diversity

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: How robust is the quantitative method described for impact assessment and the likelihood of delivering effective impact measurements.

Question 8. Risks and Issues

How will you manage risks and issues affecting delivery?

  • what risks and issues are you presently aware of, such as technical, political, commercial, managerial and environmental factors, providing a risk register
  • how will you ensure that you identify new risks or issues early
  • what approaches will you take to monitoring and mitigating risks and issues
  • for the risks or issues you are already aware of, what specific mitigation actions are you putting in place
  • how will you raise awareness of risks or issues with stakeholders
  • any potential regulatory or policy barriers to implementing your innovation, and your proposed approach to overcoming them
  • what methods of future proofing you have considered against risks arising from COVID-19 restrictions and other possible national and global factors

You must submit a risk register as an appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF, no larger than 10MB and up to 2 A4 pages long. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

We understand that the future is particularly uncertain due to Covid 19. Within your Risk register appendix you must include a summary tab showing different scenarios (high, med, low forecasts), highlighting the key challenges, roadblocks and opportunities for commercialisation that may impact these forecasts.

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: How well have the key risks and uncertainties of the project been considered and mitigated?

Question 9. Assurance 800 words

How will you make sure your innovation meets the needs of your users throughout its delivery?

Tell us:

  • how you will ensure you have a robust and up to date understanding of your users’ needs
  • how you will ensure your work is effective at delivering your users’ highest priority needs
  • how you will ensure your work meets the needs intended
  • how you will demonstrate that good design principles have been followed from the outset of your project
  • the user research and UX methods that you will be using
  • how you will ensure your outputs deliver an excellent user experience
  • innovative and creative approaches you are using to continuously develop best practice approaches

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: How strong is the approach to design principles, iterative testing, user research and user experience?

Question 10. Cost and team

How much will the phase 1 project cost and how does it represent value for money for the team (cost versus expertise) and the taxpayer? You should also consider your resource requirements and value for money in phase 2 (noting these assumptions will be refined during the course of phase 1). Describe or explain:

  • the expected team (in terms of organisations who are subcontracting for you, giving the personnel and roles)
  • any roles you will need to recruit for
  • a cost breakdown of your full resourcing requirements to deliver the phase 1 work
  • the total eligible phase 1 project costs and the grant you are requesting in terms of the project goals
  • how this project represents value for money for you and the taxpayer
  • how it compares to what you would spend your money on otherwise
  • any subcontractor costs and why they are critical to the project

Costs quoted must reflect actual costs at a “fair market value” and not include profit.

Full Economic Cost (FEC) calculations are not relevant for SBRI competitions. SBRI is a competitive process and applications will come from a variety of organisations. Whatever calculation you use to arrive at your total eligible project costs your application will be assessed against applications from other organisations. Bear this in mind when calculating your total eligible project costs. You can include overheads but remember that this is a competitive process.

You will be asked if you are VAT registered before entering your project costs. If you are a VAT registered organisation you will not need to enter your costs inclusive of VAT as the application form will calculate the VAT for you.

Total cost must include VAT. VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing organisation, and applications must list total costs inclusive of VAT. If you are not VAT registered then you can quote without VAT but you will not be able to increase invoice values to cover VAT later on.

Provide a summary of costs for phase 1. All costs must include VAT. Justify each cost. If you have made significant use of subcontractors, explain how and the costs of each.

Assessors are required to judge the application finances in terms of value for money, deciding whether the proposed cost for effort and deliverables reflects a fair market price

You can submit one appendix. This can include a short summary of the main people working on the project to support your answer. It must be a PDF and can be up to 4 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: How appropriate are the project costs and do they represent excellent value for money compared to alternative approaches?

3. Finances

Enter your phase 1 project costs, organisation details and funding details. For full information on what costs you can claim, see our project costs guidance.

Background and further information

About Small Business Research Initiative competitions

SBRI provides innovative solutions to challenges faced by the public sector. This can lead to better public services and improved efficiency and effectiveness.

The SBRI programme:

  • supports economic growth and enables the development of innovative products and services through the public procurement of R&D
  • generates new business opportunities for companies
  • provides a route to market for their ideas
  • bridges the seed funding gap experienced by many early-stage companies

SBRI competitions are open to all organisations that can demonstrate a route to market for their solution. The SBRI scheme is particularly suited to small and medium-sized businesses, as the contracts are of relatively small value and operate on short timescales. Developments are 100% funded and focused on specific identified needs, increasing the chance of exploitation.

Suppliers for each project will be selected by an open competition process and retain the intellectual property generated from the project, with certain rights of use retained by the contracting authority. This is an excellent opportunity to establish an early customer for a new technology and to fund its development.

Data sharing

This competition is jointly operated by Innovate UK, BEIS and Ofgem (each an “agency”).

Your submitted application and any other information you provide at the application stage can be submitted to each agency on an individual basis for its storage, processing and use. Any relevant information produced during the application process concerning your application can be shared by one agency with the other, for its individual storage, processing and use.

This means that any information given to or generated by Innovate UK in respect of your application may be passed on to BEIS and Ofgem and vice versa.

Innovate UK is directly responsible to you for its holding and processing of your information, including any personal data and confidential information. It is held in accordance with its Information Management Policy.

Innovate UK, BEIS and Ofgem are directly responsible to you for their holding and processing of your information, including any personal data and confidential information. Data is held in accordance with their own policies. Accordingly, Innovate UK, BEIS and Ofgem will be data controllers for personal data submitted during the application.

Innovate UK complies with the requirements of GDPR, and is committed to upholding the data protection principles, and protecting your information. The Information Commissioner’s Office also has a useful guide for organisations, which outlines the data protection principles.

This competition is funded under the Prospering from the Energy Revolution programme. As a participant in the programme you will be expected to work and share data with the Energy Systems Catapult’s Energy Revolution Integration Service (ERIS), the Energy Revolution Research Consortium EnergyRev, and our independent evaluators, Ipsos Mori.


Energy Systems Catapult will provide support functions across the successful MEDApps winners. They will help the projects with resources, best practice approaches, and access to a wide range of networks including Government to support your project to develop in a way that works best for you. You will be required to constructively engage with Energy Systems Catapult to define this support and maximise your project outputs.

Further help and information

Successful applicants will be given access to a number of resources made available at the kick-off of the projects.

Domain-specific consultative support will be provided by:

  • BEIS
  • Ofgem
  • Office for National Statistics (ONS)
  • other MED competition participants
  • Energy Networks Association (ENA)

If you want help to find a project subcontractor or stakeholders to engage with to develop your idea contact the Knowledge Transfer Network.

If you have any questions about the requirements of this competition, email energydata@innovateuk.ukri.org.

If you need more information, email us at support@innovateuk.ukri.org or call the competition helpline on 0300 321 4357 between 9am and 11:30am or 2pm and 4.30pm Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays).

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