Three North East SMEs have been awarded funding to develop new energy systems which will help organisations to reduce their carbon emissions.
Capability North East, Jumping Rivers and Smart Carbon have each been awarded £20,000 through the North East Energy Catalyst’s Energy Innovation Challenge, which supports businesses to bring new energy products to market. The funding is in addition to £100,000 of funding which was awarded to five other SMEs in late 2020.
Capability North East received funding for its Genee platform – a system that assists businesses, NGOs and public sector organisations to plan their net zero journey and which monitors and records their sustainability progress over time.
Jumping Rivers’ Newcastle-based team is developing a power cost system called ECODATA which aims to help major energy users such as campuses, schools and business centres understand their electricity tariffs, minimising costs and supporting the transition to a green energy system.
The third business to be awarded funding is Smartcarbon, which is developing a carbon calculator to meet the needs of multinational businesses and their entire supply chain.
Round three of the Energy Innovation Challenge is currently underway, with submissions from North East SMEs currently being assessed.
The North East Energy Catalyst is supported by ERDF and the Energy Innovation Challenge received grant funding from the government’s Local Growth Fund via the North East LEP.
David Lynch, Energy Innovation Partnership Manager at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), said: “The North East excels in innovating, demonstrating and delivering new solutions which can help drive economic growth in the region while solving global energy challenges, such as the need to reduce carbon emissions.
“The Energy Innovation Challenge was designed to maximise on our region’s skills and expertise by using the insight of the North East Energy Catalyst – a partnership of the region’s leading energy innovation, demonstration and delivery capabilities – to create a series of challenges for SMEs which aimed to identify solutions to energy issues which can be scaled up nationally or globally.”
