Background
The Net Zero Industry Launchpad is using the Innovate UK Business Connect Innovation Exchange(iX) platform to offer an exciting new pilot competition using the iX platform to support challenges that benefit or impact on Southwest Wales.
The aim of this competition is to support outstanding innovation projects that will impact on Southwest Wales. The pilot – South West Wales Launchpad Net Zero iX Challenges, aims to foster collaborative partnerships between a challenge holder & solution provider to deliver a project that that will accelerate the adoption of industrial circular economy, net zero or decarbonisation innovations within and across sectors for the Net Zero Industry launchpad in Southwest Wales.
The challenge holder has developed modular CO₂ capture units that can be deployed quickly and scaled horizontally across industries. The UK currently faces a declining CO₂ supply chain, due to the closure of several plants, and rising demand, especially in sectors like e-fuels, concrete, breweries, and hospitals. Existing solutions are centralized, costly, and slow to deploy, prompting the challenge holder to pursue a decentralized, scalable approach.
The Challenge
In Southwest Wales, CO₂ is a costly, unreliable input but also a locally produced by-product that is often vented, wasting value and adding avoidable emissions. Transport drives most delivered costs (87%), and long-haul logistics leave SMEs exposed to shortages and price spikes, even in sectors like brewing where sites can emit more CO₂ than they consume but cannot practically use or share it.
The regional challenge is to turn this fragmented landscape into dependable local CO₂ reuse loops using the challenge holder’s capture technology. The blocker is planning risk. Despite existing datasets, it is not possible to clearly identify which sites and sub-networks are most impactful, how these operate under real-world constraints such as local energy availability and variable demand, how to move CO₂ efficiently, or what evidence is sufficient to unlock Investment.
Large infrastructure rollouts move faster and cost less when decisions are based on shared, defensible, data-driven planning rather than one-off studies. The question is how to create that planning capability for Southwest Wales.
The challenge holder is seeking a geospatial planning tool for the Southwest Wales industrial cluster that decides where and how CO₂ capture units should be rolled out across the region and how CO₂ can most efficiently move between sites to local users. The intent is to use open and partner data to produce a phased, implementable rollout plan with costs, carbon impact, and an evidence pack for investment and permitting.
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To lead a project as a solution provider your organisation must be a UK registered :
- micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME’s)
- Academic institution
- Research and technology organisation (RTO)
- Community interest company (CIC) or charity
Your project must:
- Have a grant funding request of up to £25,000
- Last for three months
- Not start before the 1st June 2026
- Must end by 31st March 2027
Applications will be assessed on:
- Relevance to the defined challenge
- Benefit of implementation
- Feasibility/economic viability
- Innovative nature
- Ability to launch in line with expected timescales
- Credibility of applicant company
- Coherence of the proposed business model
- Development potential
- Maturity of the solution
- Suitability for the intended geographic market
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- Challenge launch: 24 February 2026
- Deadline for applications: 7 April 2026
- Selection and notification of finalists: 13 April 2026
- Pitch Day: 16 and 17 April 2026
- Confirm selected solution provider: 21 April 2026
- Submission to Innovation Funding Service (IFS): Between 21 – 28 April 2026
- Project length: 3 months
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Functional requirements
The solution must / should:
- Map supply and demand sites for CO₂ in Southwest Wales.
- Provide high-level and detailed data on CO₂ streams, impurities, volumes, and flow rates.
- Enable users (corporates) to input their site data and receive regional impact and ROI calculations.
- Prioritize biogenic sources and support future expansion to other clusters.
- Provide a ranked top ‘5’ first carbon capture deployment sites in SWW, recommend host sites, CO₂ users
- Visualise outputs with a map and table showing the CO₂ source to user routes and allocated CO₂ volumes
The Solutions will ideally also;
- Optimise on distance, source capacity, user demand, and selected objective (minimum cost, minimum emissions, maximum demand served)
- Routing feasibility for top deployment zones (distance, time etc)
- CSV upload (X sites, Y parameters, Z per year)
- Site or company simulation (fit, savings, emissions)
- Self-serve site view where company can search or select site to see data (emissions capture potential, demand)
Technical requirements
The solution should deliver a deployable v1 web tool with;
- Web app interface, highly intuitive and easy to use.
- Open source preferred, with potential for gated access to more detailed data.
- Capable of integrating with the challenge holder’s future AI and hardware control systems via API.
- Must support updates and scalability for future business needs.
- Regional Southwest Wales roads/routing GIS layer pack
- Configurable routing and network optimisation (carbon capture, aggregation, transport)
- Scenario dashboard (cost, emissions, deliverability)
- Audit trail of assumptions / weights
- The tool must run end-to-end on example data and a small initial set of Ventrix and partner sites.
Operating conditions
The solution must/should:
Initial deployment focused on South West Wales cluster.
Use open source and publicly available data; private data must be anonymized.
Hosted on the challenge holder’s website, with potential for embedding and integration.
Out of scope
The solution must/should not:
Solutions that are not web-based or require users to download separate apps.
Approaches that do not allow for open source or future scalability.
Any solution that does not support business case calculations or regional mapping.
IUK cannot fund projects that:
- involve primary production in fishery and aquaculture
- involve primary production in agriculture
- are not allowed under de minimis regulation restrictions
- are not eligible to receive Minimal Financial Assistance
- are dependent on export performance, for example, giving an award to a baker on the condition that they export a certain quantity of bread to another country.
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Existing background IP associated with a potential solution will remain with Solution Provider(s). Where any new IP generation is envisaged, it will be subject to the mutual IP agreement of the solution provider(s) and challenge holder.
Any commercial deployment of a transferred solution or newly developed solution, through licensing, joint venture, partnership, or direct investment, will be subject to the commercial agreement between the solution provider(s) and challenge holder.
Where necessary, a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) may be signed to uphold confidentiality in the engagement between the solution provider(s) and challenge holder. (This would be expected to be after company selection, it is suggested that details of IP be not disclosed, focus on the outcomes of the technology proposed).
Innovate UK and Innovate UK Business Connect do not take any share of IP ownership or enter commercial ventures through the iX programme.
The challenge holder is open to exclusive licensing for CO₂ use, with solution providers able to adapt the architecture for other applications.
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The application form for this challenge will require applicants to provide company information and answer 3 questions – Idea Summary, Technology Readiness and Intellectual Property – each with a limit of 300 words.
Additionally, the following documents must be attached for your application to be considered:
- Project plan
- Project costings – only eligible costs will be funded, please read the Innovate UK Costs guidance for further information
We recommend that you complete the application form in Google Chrome as other browsers may have compatibility issues. The application form does not need to be completed in one session and can be saved for future edits. Please ensure that you toggle “Stage Complete” for each section before submission. Note that you will no longer be able to edit your application once you have clicked “Submit Idea” at the bottom of the Summary page.
Innovate UK's application and funding process
If you need more information about how to apply, please read our funding support pages. For additional support, reach out to our team of innovation experts who are ready to help you navigate the application process and maximise your chances of success.
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Accessibility and Inclusion
Innovate UK 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.