Funding competition
Consumer Led Flexibility for the Clean Energy Superpower Mission
This funding is from the UKRI R&D Missions Accelerator Programme through the Clean Energy Superpower Mission.
Competition opens: Wednesday 10 June 2026
Competition closes: Wednesday 26 August 2026 11:00am
To work as a sole applicant or lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, a research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit, public sector organisation, or academic institution.
To view full comprehensive document please visit: Competition overview - Consumer Led Flexibility for the Clean Energy Superpower Mission - Innovation Funding Service
Description
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will invest up to £25 million from the Consumer Led Flexibility (CLF) Challenge as part of the Clean Energy Superpower Mission within the UKRI R&D Missions Accelerator Programme.
This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.
The aim of this competition is to support businesses and innovators who are developing novel AI and digital solutions and other innovative product and service solutions. This competition will accelerate consumer led flexibility and scale to system adoption by 2030. Being able to evidence how your solutions will achieve impact by 2030 and contribute to the minimum two Gigawatts (GW) flexibility target is central to this opportunity.
Your proposal must develop solutions that enable flexible loads to be better utilised in system operation. Proposals should demonstrate clear staged CLF outcomes, credible commercial pathways and strong knowledge sharing plans. Learnings should then inform future CLF policy, regulation and investment decisions across the wider system.
The Clean Energy Superpower Mission programme and partners have identified a series of specific themes we wish to target within this competition. This competition is split into two strands:
Strand 1. Software first approach: focussed on the role that new AI and digital tools and use cases can have in unlocking CLF at scale. We have identified a few areas in which we would like to invite proposals against; across markets and financial, forecasting and automation, and implementation.
Strand 2. Demand segments: focussed on seeking end to end solutions in particular segments of demand, or markets, and takes a broader approach. This can still include elements of digital and AI solutions, for example, smart solutions.
It is your responsibility to ensure you submit your application to the correct strand for your project. You will not be able to transfer your application and it will not be sent for assessment if it is out of scope.
We are looking for outcome focussed projects. Projects must provide strong justification for how they will contribute to or enable our target of at least 2 Gigawatts (GW) of additional flexibility on the system by 2030. This is part of the Clean Power 2030 Ambition to achieve 10-12 GW demand turn down during a winter peak, based on the National Energy System Operator’s (NESO) analysis.
Projects without a business lead or an end user included as part of the consortia should provide additional justification for how they will contribute to the 2030 impact ambitions without these stakeholders included.
We are anticipating a high level of interest in this programme, and UKRI reserves the right to reject any applications which we feel do not clearly align to the scope of this competition. Applicants must sufficiently justify how this funding will enable novel innovations rather than duplicate existing activity.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it.
Our experience from similar competitions suggests that you could have 10% chance of success.
We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny.
We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions.
This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.
Available support
There is a range of support available for applicants to this competition, and we strongly encourage you to review the options in the Background and Supporting Information section.
Funding type
Grant
Project size
Your project’s total eligible grant funding request must be between £100,000 and £3 million depending on which research category you are applying through.
Accessibility and Inclusion
We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.
You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.
We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.
You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).
Source: Innovate UK and .Gov.Uk