Consumer Led Flexibility for the Clean Energy Superpower Mission 2026: Up to £3 Million for UK Clean-Energy Innovation Projects
Innovate UK is offering a share of up to £25 million for UK projects developing novel digital, AI, product or service solutions that can scale consumer-led electricity flexibility by 2030.
Consumer Led Flexibility for the Clean Energy Superpower Mission 2026: Up to £3 Million for UK Clean-Energy Innovation Projects
The Consumer Led Flexibility for the Clean Energy Superpower Mission is a new Innovate UK competition for organisations developing practical ways to make electricity demand more flexible. It is aimed at innovations that can move beyond a promising prototype and help the UK use flexible loads at meaningful system scale by 2030. The call is especially relevant to companies, researchers, public bodies and delivery partners working on smart charging, heat, batteries, flexible industrial demand, energy software, forecasting, automation, consumer engagement and related services.
The competition offers a share of up to £25 million in grant funding. The permitted grant request depends on the research category: up to £500,000 for a feasibility study, up to £1 million for industrial research, and up to £3 million for experimental development. The application deadline is 26 August 2026 at 11:00am UK time, and funded projects must start by 1 January 2027 and finish by 30 June 2029.
This is a competitive innovation call, not a general energy-efficiency grant. The proposal needs to show a novel solution, a credible route to adoption, staged outcomes, and a clear contribution to at least 2 gigawatts of additional consumer-led flexibility by 2030. The official guidance also says applicants should include an end user and relevant energy-system expertise, or explain convincingly why those perspectives are not in the team.
Key details
| Detail | Confirmed information |
|---|---|
| Funder | Innovate UK, through the UKRI R&D Missions Accelerator Programme |
| Opportunity type | Grant for pre-commercialisation projects |
| Total competition budget | Up to £25 million, subject to enough high-quality applications |
| Project funding | £100,000 minimum; category limits of up to £500,000, £1 million or £3 million |
| Eligible project categories | Feasibility study, industrial research, or experimental development |
| Lead applicants | UK-registered businesses, RTOs, charities, not-for-profits, public-sector organisations or academic institutions |
| Project duration | 4 to 30 months overall; category-specific limits also apply |
| Project dates | Start by 1 January 2027 and end by 30 June 2029 |
| Deadline | 26 August 2026 at 11:00am UK time |
| Assessment | Three independent assessors; some longer projects may be invited to interview |
| Official application route | Innovation Funding Service competition overview |
What this opportunity is designed to fund
Consumer-led flexibility means changing when electricity is used, or how much is used, in response to system needs while preserving a useful service for the consumer. Examples can include charging an electric vehicle at a better time, coordinating heat pumps without compromising comfort, managing commercial refrigeration, or helping households and businesses respond to local network constraints. The opportunity is not limited to one device or one market. It is looking for solutions that help flexible loads work better in system operation.
The call has two strands. Strand 1 is a software-first approach. It covers new AI and digital tools and use cases that could help flexibility operate at scale. The listed themes are multi-market co-optimisation and locational pricing; portfolio reliability and risk transfer; confidence and AI forecasting; feeder-level flexibility and resilience; electric-vehicle smart charging and vehicle-to-everything applications; heat flexibility with comfort guarantees; and open datasets for AI.
Strand 2 focuses on demand segments. It seeks end-to-end solutions for low-income households in constrained areas, industrial and commercial anchor loads, and residential scaling. A proposal in this strand can still use digital or AI components, but it should address the complete route from the demand segment to measurable flexibility and implementation.
Applicants must select the correct strand. The guidance says an out-of-scope application cannot simply be transferred to the other strand and will not be sent for assessment. A team should therefore describe its primary system problem first, then show how its method maps to the relevant strand and one or more listed themes.
Who can apply and how collaborations work
The lead applicant may be a UK-registered business of any size, research and technology organisation, charity, not-for-profit, public-sector organisation or academic institution. The competition accepts a sole applicant or a collaboration. A collaboration is likely to be stronger when it brings together the solution developer, the organisation that understands the energy system, and a real end user or route to deployment.
For an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must both apply for funding, explain why the collaboration is needed, and describe how the partnership will work. No single partner may account for more than 70% of the total eligible costs. Partners are invited through the Innovation Funding Service and are responsible for entering their own costs and completing their own Project Impact questions.
Non-funded partners are allowed. They may be based in the UK, the European Union or elsewhere, and can include investors. A non-UK partner must provide a clear benefit to the UK, such as helping create UK jobs or revenue. Subcontractors are also allowed. UK subcontractors should be selected through the applicant’s normal procurement process. An overseas subcontractor requires a specific justification, evidence of potential UK contractors approached, and an explanation of why those contractors could not undertake the work; a lower price alone is not enough.
There are limits on how many applications an organisation can lead. A business or RTO may lead one application and collaborate in two more. An academic institution may lead multiple applications, provided a single department leads only one. Organisations that are not leading may collaborate more broadly, subject to the competition’s rules and their ability to deliver a credible role.
Funding levels and research categories
The total competition budget is up to £25 million, but it is not a guaranteed allocation for every eligible proposal. Innovate UK may adjust allocations, and the published guidance warns that a high-scoring project may still not be funded under the portfolio approach. The opportunity also reports an expected success rate of about 10% based on experience with similar competitions, so applicants should treat fit and evidence as decisive.
The funding category should match the maturity of the work:
- A feasibility study can request up to £500,000 and last up to six months. For commercial or economic activity, the grant can cover up to 70% of eligible costs for a micro or small organisation, 60% for a medium-sized organisation, or 50% for a large organisation.
- Industrial research can request up to £1 million and last up to 24 months. The same 70%, 60% and 50% commercial funding rates apply by organisation size.
- Experimental development can request up to £3 million and last up to 30 months. The commercial funding rates are up to 45% for a micro or small organisation, 35% for a medium-sized organisation, and 25% for a large organisation.
Research organisations conducting non-economic activity may share up to 100% of the total eligible project costs. RTOs, charities, not-for-profits, public-sector organisations and research organisations can receive up to 100% of their eligible costs under the stated rules. Academic institutions can claim 80% of full economic costs, calculated using the Transparent Approach to Costing method; the application should enter the 80% being claimed in the IFS.
Capital equipment may be requested, but the applicant must explain why it is proportionate to the grant and to the amount of flexibility the project is expected to enable. Do not treat the £25 million competition budget as an award promise, and do not request the maximum simply because it is available. The budget should follow the work plan, evidence needs and category rules.
Eligibility and fit test
An eligible organisation still needs an eligible project. The project must request between £100,000 and £3 million according to its research category, last between four and 30 months, start by 1 January 2027 and end by 30 June 2029. Project work must be carried out in the UK, most of the funding must be spent in the UK, and the applicant must intend to exploit the results in the UK.
The central fit question is whether the work can enable or deliver additional flexibility by 2030. A proposal should connect its technical output to actual system operation, not stop at a model, report or isolated demonstration. The guidance specifically excludes work that is mainly a literature review or requirements-gathering exercise without a clear plan for scale-up and implementation. It also excludes proposals without measurable objectives, clear technical novelty or a real feasibility challenge.
The call expects clear staged consumer-led-flexibility outcomes, a credible commercial pathway and knowledge sharing. It also expects a business lead or end user and appropriate energy-system experience in the consortium. A university-only team can still be relevant, but it must explain how it will achieve real-world impact without those stakeholders. Existing activity must be distinguished from the proposed innovation: the application should show what is genuinely new and why public funding changes the speed, risk or scale of the work.
Applicants should also review subsidy-control requirements. Innovate UK says it will carry out financial viability and eligibility checks and cannot award organisations considered to be in financial difficulty. The competition will not support arrangements that expose Innovate UK or beneficiaries to prohibited sanctions-related financial benefits. These are reasons to confirm organisational standing early, not after the technical proposal is finished.
How to apply through IFS
Start with the official UKRI opportunity page and then read the full Innovation Funding Service guidance. The IFS application has four parts: project details, application questions, finances and Project Impact. Every question must be answered, even when the answer is that a topic is not applicable.
The project-details section asks for the team, project title, start date, duration, research category, summary, public description and scope. The public description may be published, so it should explain the work without confidential information. Do not put website addresses or links inside the application answers; the official guidance says those links will not be viewed or opened.
The scored narrative covers technical and commercial potential, project management and delivery, team and resources, current state of the art and intellectual property, wider impacts, and costs and value for money. The team and resources answer can be up to 1,000 words; several other answers have 400- or 500-word limits. The video pitch is not scored, but it must be a direct-to-camera presentation of no more than two minutes and should show the solution and benefits to energy consumers and the wider UK system.
For a collaboration, invite all partners early. Each partner must complete assigned sections, enter its own costs and accept the terms and conditions. Before submission, the lead must confirm that the information is correct, the proposal fits the scope, every section is complete and all partners have finished their parts. An application can be reopened before the deadline, but it must be resubmitted after any reopening.
Materials to prepare
Build the application around a small set of consistent documents and numbers. The technical summary should define the problem, the proposed solution, the current state of the work and the result expected at the end of the project. The commercial section should explain target markets, route to market, deployment partners and the path to multi-megawatt scale by 2030. A simple impact model is more useful than a broad promise: state the baseline, the intervention, the expected flexibility outcome and how it will be measured.
The technical and commercial-potential answer requires a PDF appendix. Feasibility proposals may use up to two A4 pages; industrial-research and experimental-development proposals may use up to four A4 pages. The project-management answer requires a project plan or Gantt chart and a risk register in a PDF appendix, with up to two pages for feasibility studies or three pages for the longer categories. The wider-impacts answer requires a theory-of-change appendix of up to one A4 page. Each appendix must be no larger than 10MB and legible at 100% zoom.
Prepare a cost model that separates eligible project costs, partner contributions, grant requests, subcontractor costs and any support that will be funded separately through the Innovator Support Programme. Academic applicants should have their TRAC-based figures ready. If equipment or an overseas subcontractor is important, explain its necessity and test the justification against the official rules before entering the amount.
Preparation strategy for a competitive proposal
First, write the 2030 outcome in measurable terms. The official target is at least two gigawatts of additional flexibility, but an applicant should show the specific mechanism by which its own project contributes to that target. That might be the number of controllable assets, the expected response during peak periods, the reliability of the response, the number of households or sites reached, or the capacity of a market process to be replicated. Use the metric that matches the solution, and explain how it will be measured rather than presenting a forecast without a method.
Second, make the user and system context visible. Identify who will use the product, who controls the load, who settles or dispatches it, and which operational or regulatory barrier the project addresses. For low-income households, discuss consumer protection and comfort rather than treating participation as an abstract capacity number. For industrial loads, show operating constraints and the cost of interruption. For EVs or heat, explain how the service remains useful while the timing of demand changes.
Third, separate novelty from deployment. The proposal can include an existing platform or dataset, but it needs to identify the new technical or commercial element and explain why it is not routine improvement. The IP answer should cover existing IP, freedom to operate, new concepts, protection, exploitation and subcontractor obligations. Assessors should be able to see what public funding makes possible that ordinary company spending would not.
Finally, make the delivery plan credible. Give each work package an owner, cost, dependency, output and decision point. For projects longer than 12 months, propose stage gates with KPIs, milestone evidence and triggers to continue, redirect or stop work. Include a plan for the benefits realisation document that must be submitted to UKRI three months after the project starts.
Common mistakes to avoid
The most serious mistake is describing a general clean-energy idea without mapping it to a listed CLF theme and a 2030 outcome. A second is choosing the wrong strand or category. A third is claiming system impact without an end user, energy-system expertise or a defensible explanation for their absence.
Do not confuse total project cost with grant request. Apply the correct intensity for each commercial partner and describe how the balance will be financed. Do not hide important work in an unexplained subcontract. Do not include unsupported claims about consumer savings, emissions, reliability or market adoption. State the baseline and the test that will establish whether the claimed benefit occurred.
Do not leave partner administration to the last day. Partners need to accept invitations, enter costs and complete Project Impact questions before the lead can submit. Check the video upload well before closing time, and remember that reopening an application creates a new obligation to resubmit it. If you need an exception to the funding or duration limits, email Innovate UK at least 10 working days before the deadline; an unapproved exception can make the application ineligible.
Timeline and next steps
The competition opened on 10 June 2026. The closing point is 26 August 2026 at 11:00am UK time. Innovate UK expects to notify applicants on 28 October 2026. Projects must start by 1 January 2027 and end by 30 June 2029, subject to the category-specific duration limits and grant-offer setup.
As of this page’s 11 August 2026 update, the deadline is close enough that a new consortium should confirm its core partner, strand, category, budget and outcome immediately. Innovate UK recommends requesting accessibility support at least 15 working days before closing and lists [email protected] and 0300 321 4357 as contact routes. The official guidance also offers Innovate UK Business Connect support for finding project partners.
Frequently asked questions
Can a small company apply alone?
Yes. A UK-registered business of any size may apply as a sole applicant. A collaboration may improve the route to impact, especially when the project needs an end user or direct energy-system expertise, but it is not mandatory if the sole applicant can satisfy the scope and justify its delivery plan.
Is the full £25 million available to one applicant?
No. £25 million is the competition-wide allocation, subject to receiving enough high-quality applications. The maximum project amounts are £500,000 for feasibility, £1 million for industrial research and £3 million for experimental development, with the relevant funding intensity applying to commercial work.
Can the project include an overseas partner?
Yes, a non-funded overseas partner may participate if its involvement benefits the UK. Overseas subcontracting is also possible, but it requires evidence that suitable UK contractors were considered and could not do the work. Overseas partners should not be assumed to receive grant funding without checking the detailed rules.
Is the video pitch required to be highly produced?
No. The guidance describes it as a direct-to-camera pitch of no more than two minutes, and says it does not need to be a high-budget production. It is not scored, but it must work technically and explain the solution and its benefits to consumers and the UK system.
When will successful projects begin?
Projects must start by 1 January 2027, and projects must start on the first day of a month. Work cannot begin until Innovate UK has approved the Grant Offer Letter and the project setup process is complete.
Official links
- UKRI opportunity page
- Innovation Funding Service competition overview and application
- UKRI R&D Missions Accelerator Programme
Check the official IFS record immediately before submitting. Innovate UK states that its competition brief is the authoritative source for the deadline and that other government or third-party sites may not always show the correct information.