Ofgem has named the seven ‘challenges’ to be addressed in its the fifth Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) round.
Identifying the strategic challenges is the first of a four-stage two-year process. The challenges will be addressed between May 2025 and September 2026 through ‘ideation’ (to generate new ideas for projects, products or services to address the challenges), ‘incubation’ (forming partnerships and consortia) and ‘acceleration’. The acceleration phase has three funding cycles per year “to allow consortia to submit applications in a timely manner to accelerate game-changing innovations”.
The challenges are:
• Advanced Energy Transmission and Networks: How can we leverage breakthroughs in semiconductor, superconductor, and wireless power transmission technologies to enhance grid performance?
• Dynamic modelling: How can we leverage advanced grid simulation and optimisation to “squeeze more capacity” from existing electricity networks?
• High-energy demand point integration: How can we develop scalable approaches to integrate rise of large demands (eg Data Centres), ensuring an increase in capacity within the next decade?
• Consumer-centric grid solutions: How can we use novel technology and processes to deliver grid expansion in ways that enhance public support and deliver wider local and environmental benefits?
• Enhanced system visibility and control: How can we integrate digital automation and enhanced system monitoring to support next generation power system control and operations?
• Green Gas: How can we integrate low carbon gases such as biomethane and Bio-SNG in a cost-effective way, enabling networks to efficiently manage their injection while ensuring system stability and reliability?
• Whole system Optimisation: How can whole system approaches enable gas and multi-vector decarbonisation?
Ofgem said the challenges “reflect the most urgent opportunities for innovation, where targeted investment can drive meaningful transformation across the energy system”.