Energy futuresCarbon abatement technologies compete for prizes

The U.K. Technology Strategy Board is investing up to £4.5 million in carbon abatement technologies (CATs), centered mainly on innovative projects with strong elements of technology demonstration. To select the technologies, the TSB is holding a competition – a competition which  is part of TSB’s continued portfolio of investment in low-carbon technologies and forms the next phase of our CATs implementation plan.

The TSB says it aims to deliver innovative technologies that tackle CO2 emissions from large single-point sources such as fossil-fuel power plants and energy-intensive industries. The challenge is to produce cost-effective, energy-efficient ways of reducing CO2 that have high reliability and durability.

There are two strands to the competition:

• The first builds on TSB’s 2009 competition for feasibility studies and seeks to take the best of those concepts and other new proposals towards commercialization through collaborative research, development and demonstration (RD&D) projects.
• The second strand is for feasibility studies into innovative and disruptive carbon abatement technologies.

In Strand 1, up to £4 million is available for collaborative R&D projects. Projects must be business-led, collaborative and contain a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME). The competition is open to consortia that have demonstrated the feasibility of technologies at a design or laboratory scale and are looking to progress to the next stage of development and demonstration.

In Strand 2, up to £500,000 is available for new feasibility studies. Projects must be led by a SME and must be collaborative. Partners can include businesses of any size and academics. The competition is open to consortia with new and innovative ideas that could significantly contribute to CO2 abatement from large single-point sources.

The competition opens on 1 November 2011 and the deadline for receipt of applications is at noon on 13 December 2011.

A briefing day for potential applicants will be held in London on 15 November 2011.