UK-Australia Renewable Hydrogen Innovation Partnership Programme

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• be or involve a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
• collaborate with at least one Australian registered eligible organisation or organisations applying to the Australian side of the competition

Australian organisations must be separate legal entities, not linked to the UK partners.

The project team must involve at least one grant claiming UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)

Your project must:

• have collaboration between at least one UK and at least one Australian registered organisation
• involve a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
• have total project costs of up to £2 million
• start by 1 May 2024
• end by 31 March 2026

UK project partners must carry out the majority of their project work in the UK or Australia and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK.

UK participants must submit an application to Innovate UK and Australian partners must submit an application to the Australian side of the competition.

Both UK and Australian applications must be successful to receive grant funding.

All businesses in a consortium must be separate legal and non-linked entities. This is to ensure that projects encourage genuine international collaboration, not internal company research. Linked companies are considered a single entity under the parent company.

Your project must have a balanced contribution of the total eligible project costs among the partners from the participating partner countries. No more than 60% of the total project costs can be claimed by any single partner or by all partners from a single participating country.

The aim of this competition is to reduce the cost associated with the development of a low carbon hydrogen economy and is seeking proposals from business-led collaborations between UK and Australian registered businesses.

Your project must:

• focus on innovation within the hydrogen ecosystem
• advance the development of clean hydrogen or derivative technologies, or hydrogen applications
• have a focus on hydrogen use, and at least one other part of the hydrogen value chain
• involve an element of commercial innovation such as demonstrating a novel business model or novel hydrogen applications
• be aligned with the national hydrogen strategies of the UK and Australia and sub-national strategies where applicable for the project’s target region

Your project can be of a large, medium or small scale so long as it’s commercially sustainable.

Your project must focus on two or more of the following:

• affordable low carbon hydrogen production, including integration of hydrogen production with renewables
• safe and efficient hydrogen storage and distribution
• hydrogen utilisation in mobility, industrial processes and power

Example innovation areas of interest include but are not limited to:

• hydrogen business models
• low carbon hydrogen carriers such as ammonia and methanol
• electrolysis, methane reforming, pyrolysis or other production methods
• physical infrastructure, for example tanks and pipes
• blending, deblending and purification technologies
• sensing and metering
• compression
• materials
• fuel cells
• refuelling

Where projects are considering the use of hydrogen for mobility, we are particularly interested in and will give preference to applications in heavy duty land transport and maritime.

Projects that focus on complete value chains are encouraged. A complete value chain is one that includes an element of hydrogen production, an element of hydrogen storage or hydrogen distribution or both and an element of hydrogen use.

We are not funding projects that:

• do not have a collaboration agreement with an Australian registered organisation funded by Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water’s (DCCEEW)
• are focussed on sustainable aviation fuel
• are focussed on hydrogen for space heating in either an industrial or domestic setting
• cannot demonstrate they are developing or using low carbon hydrogen or hydrogen carriers when project is in use commercially
• are developing or innovating in carbon capture and storage technologies
• are business as usual and do not demonstrate significant innovation
• do not benefit the UK

Innovate UK will hold a briefing event at 11.30am UK time on Monday 4th December: click here for the joining link.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK KTN’s Hydrogen team, and also see the online marketplace details below.

A virtual networking space to assist on business-partner matching for the Australia-UK Renewable Hydrogen Innovation programs has been jointly organised by Innovate UK and Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW).

Australian applicants can register for information sessions about the Program here.