Driving the Electric Revolution: 2020 Annual Report launched

The Driving the Electric Revolution Challenge, represents an investment of up to £80million over 4 years for business-led innovation projects that enable UK supply chain and manufacturing capability growth in power electronics, machines & drives (PEMD).

The recently launched Driving the Electric Revolution: 2020 Annual Report highlights the challenge’s significant progress and achievements made throughout 2020. In a year dominated by the impact of Covid-19, the report also reflects on how Driving the Electric Revolution is playing a crucial role in building back better and must be used to catalyse the fundamental net zero industry that is PEMD.

Key highlights of the report include:

• the continued growth of engagement across all sectors and across the full technology range represented by the Challenge, catalysed by the KTN hosted ‘Engage with…’ webinars.
• delivery of the ‘Accelerated Supply’ collaborative research and development activities resulted in 14 projects involving 33 different partners and investment from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) of around £6.7 million.
• delivery of the Industrialisation Centre, a £33 million competition, with a winning consortium collecting most of the UK’s PEMD community to deliver specific industrialisation equipment for the sector to complement existing open access facilities.
• launching Catalysing Green Innovation: Advancing PEMD Supply Chain, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Collaborative research and development activities were supported by investment from UKRI of up to £5 million for three to nine month projects with a total project cost of up to £500,000.

KTN and Driving the Electric Revolution

KTN provides a key role in promoting the challenge, in addition to growing and supporting the Driving the Electric Revolution community. Significant achievements in 2020 have included:

• hosting 33 webinars, including the weekly “Engage With…” series of webinars, giving leading companies a platform to present their innovative work, technological challenges and future opportunities.
• providing direct support to the community for consortium building, collaborations, and assistance in project development. KTN facilitated 100 new connections, providing introductions to businesses that may not have previously considered working together.
• promoting and providing information about the Driving the Electric Revolution challenge to a targeted network of more than 2,400 unique PEMD focused individuals.

Download the Annual Report

The Driving the Electric Revolution: 2020 Annual Report is available to read in full at the link below.