Energy Innovation Needs Assessment Overview Report

"The UK needs to decarbonise in a way that ensures energy reliability and affordability and supports economic growth and employment. While the market will innovate new technologies to some extent, there is a rationale for the UK to intervene to overcome barriers, such the high risk associated with speculative technologies, long payback periods, and lack of a clear market signal for low-carbon goods and services."

This report aims to identify the key innovation needs across the UK’s energy system, to inform the prioritization of public sector investment in low-carbon innovation. Innovations were prioritized in terms of the value they contribute to the UK, either by reducing energy costs or by increasing the potential export markets. Innovations were also prioritized when they can “unlock value across electricity, heat, transport sectors and the rest of the economy”. The report also analyzed whether there is a need for UK intervention in addition to private and international efforts. The technologies investigated are limited to those that provide clean energy supply or reduce demand for energy and cross-cutting technologies that facilitate the delivery of clean energy. Some of the priority innovations identified include, but are not limited to:

Demonstration of early commercial gasification-based routes for bioenergy to produce liquid or gaseous biofuels, including in combination with CCUS

Bioenergy: Piloting the pre-treatment and hydrolysis steps and developing processes that are tailored to particular feedstocks

Bioenergy: development of miscanthus breeds and its use in energy processes

Demonstration of reformers for hydrogen production in combination with pre-combustion CCUS

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