AI for net zero gets £4m boost in UK

The government has awarded over £1.25 million ($1.6 million) to six energy sector projects for new artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to accelerate decarbonisation.

The funding, part of a total of almost £4 million ($5.1 million) that has been promised for AI innovation for industrial decarbonisation, is intended to support the development of approaches for decarbonisation in order to support the transition to net zero.

The lion’s share of the funding, £500,000 ($636,703) has been awarded to the Digital Catapult to establish a virtual ‘centre of excellence’ to advance and promote the adoption of AI decarbonisation applications.

The ‘Artificial Intelligence for Decarbonisation’s Virtual Centre of Excellence’ (ADViCE) initiative, which will be led in partnership with the Energy Systems Catapult and Alan Turing Institute, is planned to understand and address barriers that prevent companies from using AI decarbonisation applications and to identify innovation opportunities to develop new high growth applications.

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Multiple parallel work streams are planned to bring together stakeholders such as adopters, AI developers, investors, local government, institutions, regulatory authorities and academics.

Driving power sector decarbonisation

The balance of the funding is focused on supporting the development of innovative approaches to help drive decarbonisation in the power sector.

Building controls specialist Future Decisions, based at Reading University, receives £104,651 ($113,263) for its ‘OptimalPrime’ initiative to enhance AI for building management systems in order to optimise the building control to deliver sustainability savings, potentially up to 65% per building.

Open Climate Fix, a non-profit lab, receives £121,500 ($154,670) to create an open source model for hyper-local solar PV generation forecasting, with extensions to EV load modelling, applying AI with real-time electricity grid data, satellite imagery, solar PV site data and weather data.

The University of Nottingham receives £133,932 ($170,496) for another solar generation forecasting initiative, in this case to create AI models combining sky images and numerical weather data in order to improve the prediction accuracy of meteorological parameters.

H2GO Power, which is developing hydrogen storage solutions, receives £130,621 ($166 281) to develop a module for its AI hydrogen management platform, HyAI, for cases with highly seasonal power demand and extreme events to optimise hydrogen delivery for multiple off-takers

Quantum solutions developer Secqai receives £100,000 ($127 249) to create a neuromorphic computing unit emulating the neural structure of the human brain as a potential step towards the more energy efficient use of AI in computing.

Commenting, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance Lord Callanan said that with the UK’s expertise with advanced AI the boundaries must now be pushed in how the technology can enhance the rapidly growing clean energy sector.

“It’s projects like [these] that will take us to the next step on our ambitious journey to becoming net zero, while boosting our energy security and creating a new wave of skilled jobs for the future.”

AI funding for smart grid

Alongside the awards, which also included two for AI initiatives to advance decarbonisation in industry and one in agriculture, a further £2.25 million ($2.86 million) was allocated to support further AI innovation in the areas of electrification and the smart grid, transportation and land use for renewables generation.

Up to £350,000 ($445 355) may be awarded for the individual projects, which must be completed by March 2025.

Applications are due by 10 October with the awards expected to be in announced in December and project kick-off from February 2024.