Ofgem Strategic Innovation Fund Discovery C7

This competition is delivered by Innovate UK in partnership with the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem). It is funded by the Ofgem Strategic Innovation Fund, which aims to deliver net zero at lowest cost to consumers and support innovative businesses to grow and scale. Discovery is the first phase of a four phase competition: • Discovery • Alpha • Beta • Deployment There are five challenge areas in the Discovery Phase: • Challenge 1: Industrial and business connection acceleration • Challenge 2: Faster build and maintenance • Challenge 3: Instant use domestic energy devices • Challenge 4: Eliminating energy outages • Challenge 5: Decentralised system balancing You are encouraged to consider all areas of your Project from the initial Discovery phase through to commercialisation following Alpha, Beta and Deployment.This competition is open to collaborative applications only. Your Project must address one of the Innovation Challenges. You must plan for the development of your Project to meet an Innovation Challenge through to: • live testing in the Alpha Phase • large scale demonstration in the Beta Phase • deployment of the proven solution into business as usual at the Deployment Phase It is the responsibility of the lead applicant to ensure that you are entering the appropriate challenge competition and theme for your Project. You will not be able to transfer your application, and it will not be sent for assessment if it is out of scope. Successful applicants from the Discovery Phase will be invited to apply for the Alpha Phase. In applying to this Discovery Phase competition, you are entering into a competitive process. Any adoption and implementation of a solution from this competition would be subject to a separate, possibly competitive, procurement exercise. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government, or third party sites will always show the correct competition information. This competition is delivered by Innovate UK in partnership with the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem). It is funded by the Ofgem Strategic Innovation Fund, which aims to deliver net zero at lowest cost to consumers and support innovative businesses to grow and scale. Each Innovation Challenge as listed in the Innovation Challenge document has different aims. You must select which challenge your Project is working on. • Challenge 1: Industrial and business connection acceleration • Challenge 2: Faster build and maintenance • Challenge 3: Instant use domestic energy devices • Challenge 4: Eliminating energy outages • Challenge 5: Decentralised system balancing Your Project must meet the eligibility criteria of the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), as stipulated in the SIF Governance Document. Applicants must demonstrate that the Projects deliver a net benefit to consumers through: • financial cost reductions, for example, in operating the network, energy bills, users of network services • emission reduction • access to revenues for network users • introducing new products, process and services to the UK energy market Your proposal must focus on network innovation that can benefit GB energy network infrastructure, consumers, operation, and utilisation. You must address: • users and their context • constraints affecting the problem or wider context • opportunities for improvement • environmental impacts At this stage a Project Direction will be issued for the Discovery Phase only. Successful applicants will be invited to apply for Alpha Phase. The Discovery Phase of a Project will define the problem and the value in solving it. It will also facilitate a common understanding of consumers’ and network users’ needs from the innovation and identifying constraints. The Alpha Phase will focus on preparing and testing solutions that are identified during the Discovery Phase, ahead of any large scale demonstration of the Project in the Beta Phase. The Deployment phase must have a proven solution to be deployed into business as usual. Specific themes Innovation Challenge focus Any proposed Project against any of the themes must also consider contributing to the key cross cutting areas: Cost reduction: Drastically reducing whole life infrastructure costs and enhancing resilience aims to ensure affordability and unlock billions in economic savings and opportunity. New business models and service definitions will allow value to be better realised by customers. Customer outcomes: Radically simpler engagement with networks to connect assets, and significantly higher resilience, meet the needs of customers from households to major sites. Economic growth: Accelerating connections across vectors and asset scales, and minimising the disruption caused by infrastructure works, will streamline expansion of energy-intensive sites and uptake of new technology by consumers. Decarbonisation: Reshaping the architecture of system operations is a

This award has been designed to be provided on a no subsidy basis, as defined in the Subsidy Control Act 2022 . This means to be eligible, the award will not give an economic advantage to one or more organisations, and you must not be acting economically as an organisation within the meaning of the act. In limited circumstances, EU State aid rules may apply under the Windsor Framework and a ‘No Aid’ award may be given in accordance with the R&D&I Framework. Your Project Your Project must: • have total eligible Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) requested funding of no more than £200,000, exclusive of VAT • provide a minimum of 10% of total Project costs as a compulsory contribution from private funds • start after 1 January 2027 • end by 31 May 2027 • be completed within the five month window Your Project deliverables must be completed within the five month window stated. You are required to fulfil all monitoring requirements, for example, end of phase meetings and Project show and tells, further guidance will be provided. Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day and this must be stated within your application. You must not start your project until your Project Direction has been received and approved. Your Project start date will be reflected in your Project Direction if you are successful. You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs . Lead organisation To lead a Discovery Phase Project, you must: • be an Ofgem licensed gas distribution network, gas transmission, electricity transmission, electricity distribution, or National Energy System Operator (NESO) • work with at least one other organisation as a Project Partner Project Partners For this Competition, there are no specific Project Partner requirements in addition to the lead network licensee. You are encouraged to have other Project Partners. Your Project Partners can include a variety of third party innovators such as: • start-ups • SMEs • suppliers • academics • independent researchers • disruptors • other licenced energy network companies This list is not intended to be exhaustive. The Project Direction will be awarded to a single legal entity only. If successful, the Project Direction will be awarded only to the lead network (Funding Party). Project Partners must be responsible for at least one deliverable in the Discovery Phase. Ofgem are looking for proposals that involve all the necessary stakeholders relevant to the proposed innovation. We particularly encourage Projects working with suitable SME technology developers and growth companies. Each Project Partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a Project. Once Project Partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own Project costs in the application. To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must: • apply for funding when entering their costs into the application • include rationale for the collaboration and describe the structure in your application Non-funded partners Your project can include organisations who do not claim any funding for their work on the project. Their costs will be covered from their own resources. These can include UK, EU and other non-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries and exploit the results outside the UK. Where non-funded partners have been invited to the application on IFS, their costs will count towards the total eligible project costs. Sanctions This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions . For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups . Use of animals in research and innovation Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance. Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation . Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made. Previous applications Ofgem will not award funding if you have failed to comply with the elig

Before you start You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start. SIF Governance Document - terms and conditions (T&Cs) The SIF Governance Document is specific to the Ofgem Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF). It is issued by Ofgem further to the SIF Licence Condition and sets out the governance and administration of the SIF. Network operators and the National Energy System Operator (NESO) must comply with the SIF Governance Document. The SIF Governance Document provides more information on: • Eligibility Criteria • application process • assessment of Projects • Project delivery and monitoring • funding arrangements • Project administration, including compliance and audits • intellectual property rights and royalties • learning and collaboration, including external stakeholder relationship development, information sharing and reporting This list is not exhaustive. If your application is successful, Ofgem will issue a Project Direction to the network licensee leading the Project, which confirms the special conditions, deliverables, costs and milestones for which they are accountable during the upcoming Phase. It is the responsibility of each partner in the Project to ensure that they have read the SIF Governance Document . By ticking the T&Cs box in IFS ahead of the application being submitted, you are confirming that you have read the SIF Governance Document and are satisfied that you understand the regulatory framework. You can contact us if there is any aspect of the SIF you do not understand. Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure: • that all the information provided in the application is correct • your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria • all sections of the application are marked as complete • that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs) You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline. What we ask you The application is split into three sections: • Project details. • Application questions. • Finances. Accessibility and Inclusion We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us. You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance. We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline. You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays). 1. Project details This s