Following the publication of the five RIIO-3 Innovation Challenges, we are welcoming early engagement from innovators with ideas or solutions that could help address them.
The innovation delivery groups will shape and prioritise activity and opportunities under each challenge over the coming months. However, innovators can begin engaging now where they have ideas or solutions that align with the published challenges (and the innovation priorities identified).
The Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) team has over 200 years of collective industry experience and can provide initial feedback on ideas, support proposition development, help assess alignment with the challenges, signpost to relevant funding routes and facilitate engagement with energy networks where appropriate. Where appropriate, the EIC will liaise with Ofgem, UKRI and relevant stakeholders to ensure effective industry coordination.
Please complete the SIF Challenge Triage form at the bottom of this page. If you have any further questions please contact us.
Major new strategic industrial sites can be energised and operational within six months by 2033
Overview
Rapid demand for new and expanding industrial sites, including data centres, offers fundamental opportunities for industrial and economic growth. However, delays in connecting to electricity networks can undermine many potential opportunities.
For new data centres or expanding manufacturers, the time spent in the grid connection queue can be as long as eight to ten years on average in Great Britain, compared with just two years in Norway, which leads to disconnects in the timeline between the economic need for these sites and their actual
operation.
This challenge will dramatically reduce the time needed to start supplying energy to a new industrial site, facilitating the rapid expansion of essential industries, attracting further investment into Great Britain and enabling economic growth.
A particular focus of this challenge is in cross-vector collaboration to ensure all operational requirements of the site are met, while optimising energy network connections through cross-vector solutions and giving consideration to the circularity of other vectors including water and wastewater usage. Trade offs in cross-vector solutions should be considered to ensure the benefits afforded by speed do not lead to unintended adverse impacts.
Maximising use of local energy resources will also enhance demand for clean power generation, accelerating renewables deployment. This challenge primarily targets new, strategically significant demand sites for energisation within the six-month timeframe.
However, the innovations and learnings will provide spillover benefits to a wide range of business and industrial customers, including both demand and generation.
All network customers will see improved service from dramatic accelerations of connection applications, optioneering, and consenting processes, providing a smooth and seamless customer experience.
Potential Prize
- Massive opportunity to unlock growth and jobs in future industries across the economy
- Attraction of international investment
- Strategic fast-tracking of sites to align to critical demands
- Acceleration of speed-to-energy for customers integrating cross-vector energy services to provide an energy solution which can evolve over time
- Equipping Great Britain to be more responsive to geopolitical or technological shocks.
Challenge Ambition
- Speed-to-Energy: The average elapsed time of networks’ responsible actions between receipt of an energy network connection request and connection energisation should be six months or less. An extremely stretching target, but taskforce engagement and international evidence demonstrates that this timescale would have value for demand customers
- Strategically Significant Demand Sites: Following the approach developed by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) for the Connections Accelerator Service, submitted connection application projects would be assessed against either economic or social criteria combined with national security and/or public interest considerations. This challenge references industrial sites, and so an additional criterion would be needed to assess the alignment of a connection application with this challenge in the context of the evolving technology and economic landscape
- Delivery Year: A seven-year full deployment timescale to 2033 for the wide-ranging innovation areas of this challenge creates impetus for meaningful change across the energy sector. Cross-sector data sharing, expected to be delivered in 2030, would be instrumental for delivery.
Necessary Partnerships
- System Operator: For facilitating a cross-vector and whole-system optimised connections process
- Networks: Electricity and gas distribution network operators to collaborate on possible connection options to speed up the energisation process. This may also include transmission network operators depending on the scale of the industrial site
- Industrial Customers: For this challenge the customers are critical participants in co-creating the connection terms to trade off their needs against energy system possibilities and in kickstarting new business models that mobilise capital to rapidly deliver assets
- Developers: Partnerships with key industry players, site developers and local authorities are crucial in delivering suitable connections within the timeframe
- Supply Chain: Close engagement with connection asset suppliers will enhance deliverability of physical works
- Technology Partners: Those with new tools to automate connection services, extending to solutions based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), will give customers more control and visibility.
Innovation Opportunities
- Strong co-creation of solutions with customers
- Industrial heat decarbonisation, and use of waste heat locally
- Circularity of water/wastewater or other vectors
- Connection of high density loads with generation
- Cross-vector connections and solutions (both interim and enduring)
- System wide optioneering and anticipatory planning, including transmission/distribution coordination
- Regulatory and legislative arrangements for balancing customer rights and
strategic national interests, under differentiated energy system access rights.
Case Study: A Skyscraper in a Day
In 2021, BROAD Sustainable Building constructed the 11 storey Holon Building Garden A1 in just 29 hours.
Situated in Changsha, Hunan province, China, the building was completed with all essential utilities such as water, electricity, air conditioning and ventilation with energy recovery. 56 shipping-container-sized modules, made from stainless steel, were manufactured offsite in 15 days in a factory with an annual production capacity of 2.7 million m2.
As well as China, Holon Buildings have been constructed in the USA, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea. Not only is the construction cheaper and five times faster, but the predicted lifespan is 20 times that of a traditional build – with greater earthquake resistance too.