Research and development into low carbon energy technologies is set to receive a boost through a £10 million investment by the Government-sponsored Technology Strategy Board.

With many countries moving towards a lower carbon economy, the Technology Strategy Board is keen to encourage the development of innovations that will both contribute to the UK's carbon-reduction targets and position UK companies to take advantage of increasing global demand for low carbon energy technologies.

The £10 million investment will fund highly innovative research and development in areas such as intelligent grid integration and management, carbon abatement technologies, hydrogen & fuel cells, microgeneration & photovoltaics and bioenergy. The investments will help to fund winning projects, which will involve businesses working collaboratively with other businesses or with research organisations and academic institutions.

The Technology Strategy Board's Low Carbon Energy Technologies competition will help to accelerate the development of new technologies, bringing them quickly into use in the UK and around the world.

Explaining the background to the competition, Technology Strategy Board Chief Executive Iain Gray said "The challenge of moving towards a lower carbon economy, using a mix of technologies and energy sources, requires us to develop a variety of low carbon energy technologies for the electricity, heat and transport markets."

The Technology Strategy Board is a business-led executive non-departmental public body, established by the government. Its mission is to promote and support research into, and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life. It is sponsored by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS).

The Technology Strategy Board's Collaborative Research and Development Programme is investing directly in new and emerging technologies and has been designed to help businesses work with each other or with academic partners to develop technologies that will underpin products and services of the future. Since 2004, the programme has supported about 700 projects across 40 technology areas with a combined business and government investment worth over £1 billion.

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