PEMD Scale-up: Strand 1, adopting manufacturing best practice

Drivers such as climate change, supply chain resilience and the cost of energy mean that there is a growing need to invest in manufacturing efficiency, particularly across the Power Electronics Machines and Drives (PEMD) value chain.

Innovate UK’s Driving the Electric Revolution, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £5 million in projects that enable the scale-up of PEMD manufacturing to develop a resilient, cross-sectoral, UK supply chain for these enabling technologies critical for net zero.

This competition is split into two strands:

Strand 1 (this strand): Adopting manufacturing best practice, which aims to fund feasibility studies that facilitate the transfer of knowledge, solutions, technologies and best practice from other manufacturing sectors and demonstrate the impact of these innovations on the PEMD supply chain.

Strand 2: Manufacturing process development

To find out more about this funding opportunity, click here to view the competition briefing slides.

It is your responsibility to ensure you submit your application to the correct strand 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.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request between £50,000 and £400,000
• start by 1 May 2023
• last between 6 and 12 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• collaborate with other UK registered organisations

A business can be involved in up to three applications across both strands of the competition. They can lead on a maximum of one application in each strand.

An academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation cannot lead on any applications, but can collaborate on any number of applications across the two strands.

Scope

In this strand we are looking to fund collaborative feasibility projects that will facilitate and de-risk the transfer of knowledge, solutions and technologies from other manufacturing sectors into the UK PEMD community.

The aim is to improve manufacturing best practice in these technologies which are critical for net zero.

We would like to see the impact of these innovations on the UK PEMD supply chain demonstrated as part of your application.

Elements of the manufacturing supply chain that are considered in scope include:

• materials processing
• sub-component and component manufacturing
• sub-system integration and assembly
• final assembly of PEMD specific modules
• remanufacturing
• end of life disassembly and recycling

This list is not intended to be exhaustive. Other manufacturing process innovations may be in scope.

Projects must be able to demonstrate that:

• the innovation is new to and will positively impact the PEMD supply chain
• there are potential cost and energy savings, productivity and quality benefits to their business
• they will have a positive impact on the environmental, societal and governance (ESG) performance of the PEMD supply chain
• they are exploitable through future activities
• there is the potential to deliver a return on investment should the project be successful

Your project outputs should ideally have potential for cross-sector impact.

We are not funding projects that are:

• fundamental research
• not collaborative
• not industry led
• focusing on product development
• not developing capability that will enhance UK PEMD supply chains
• not demonstrating potential for a credible return on investment
• focused around batteries
• dependent on export performance
• dependent on domestic inputs usage

Briefing events

In-person competition briefing events took place in September 2022 where attendees networked with the PEMD community at the collaboration events at the Driving the Electric Revolution Industrialisation Centres (DER-IC) in Strathclyde, Newcastle, Newport and Nottingham.

Watch the competition briefing webinar recording to learn about this funding opportunity.

If you would like help to find a project partner, contact Sven Knowles at Innovate UK KTN.