£166m for UK green projects

Update: August 6, 2023
£166m for UK green projects

The funding will create over 60,000 well-paid green jobs across the UK, cutting business costs and helping to revitalise industrial heartlands and meet the UK’s climate target of reducing emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels

“Six months ago, the Prime Minister set out a  10 Point Plan for creating and supporting up to 250,000 British jobs as we level up and build back greener from the pandemic,” says energy minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan (pictured).

The 10 Point Plan commits to removing ten megatonnes of carbon dioxide, generating 5GW of hydrogen by 2030, and creating 250,000 green jobs.

Today’s announcement includes £60 million to support the development of low carbon hydrogen in the UK and to identify and scale-up more efficient solutions for making clean hydrogen from water using electricity.

This will take the UK one step closer to using low carbon hydrogen in key industries across the UK – from powering transport such as trains and ships to factories and the heating systems in our homes. This funding will help create around 8,000 hydrogen jobs set out in the 10 Point Plan.

£37.5 million is earmarked to fund a programme of greenhouse gas removal methods with twenty-four projects across England and Wales receiving up to £250,000 to fund designs that develop new ways of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and store them safely, and a further 5 projects will receive up to £4.5 million each to investigate the viability of adopting greenhouse gas removal methods at scale.

£20 million is to support the development of the next generation Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) technologies so they can be deployed at scale by 2030. This could include funding innovative technologies that widen the suitability of CCUS to a larger range of UK industrial uses such as chemicals and cement, reducing the cost of deploying CCUS and helping industrial waste or power sector companies to capture and store harmful emissions from the source, before they are emitted into the atmosphere.

£20 million is to establish a new virtual Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre that will accelerate the decarbonisation of key energy-intensive industries which currently make a significant contribution to UK emissions.

Run by Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, the Centre will bring together new technologies and address the challenges faced by industrial areas, helping to provide solutions that reduce costs, risks and emissions.

This centre will connect and empower the UK industrial decarbonisation community with over 140 partners, including industry and business, government and regulatory agencies and academics, working together to deliver a hub for industrial decarbonisation.

£16.5 million is going to the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund to develop new technologies and processes that help energy-intensive sectors cut their emissions, while reducing their energy bills.

Projects receiving funding include Tate & Lyle to decarbonise its London sugar refinery and cut emissions by up to 90% and Celsa Manufacturing to install new technologies that improve energy efficiencies in the process to melt scrap metal and produce steel.

BAE Systems will also receive funding to install energy efficient technology that could save equivalent annual emissions of around 700 households.

£8 million is for projects to develop innovations, such as repurposing textile waste, new clay production techniques for the ceramics industry and concrete manufacturing that support the rapid recovery and sustainability of UK industry.

Projects include developing glazes for fast-fire manufacturing of ceramic tiles made entirely from recycled waste, creating a cost-efficient, low carbon concrete manufacturing solution using waste materials and developing the world’s first, high temperature heat pump that can compete commercially with burning fossil fuels.

£4.7 million is to establish a new Transforming Foundation Industries Research and Innovation Hub. The hub will be led by Cranfield University and will help industries like metals, glass, cement, paper and glass to work together and address their common challenges while accelerating the development and adoption of new technologies and business models.

This could include creating new, smart materials and processes that enable cheaper, lower energy and low carbon products.

£86 million of the total funding package announced today comes from the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which provides funding for low-carbon technologies and systems, helping the UK end its contribution to climate change.