What is the North East Energy Catalyst?
A ground-breaking partnership to unite the North East’s leading energy innovation, demonstration and delivery capabilities.
Mission
To catalyse an integrated energy system, which grows a productive, clean economy for communities across the globe.
Vision
To develop and showcase solutions to global energy challenges via innovation, demonstration and delivery.
The North East is home to a unique and comprehensive asset base for innovating, demonstrating and delivering solutions to global energy challenges. It also hosts a highly innovative industry base, at the cutting edge of developing and commercialising these solutions, and already supplying into the sector.
Facilitated by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), partners including industry, the public sector, universities, institutions and government bodies are working together to unite this range of opportunities and to:
- Tackle major energy challenges and deliver on national policy
- Drive new economic growth opportunities
- Accelerate regional decarbonisation
- Invite and co-ordinate engagement with partners
Who we are
The North East Energy Catalyst is made up of key partners from across the region.
Find out more
Our region’s assets
Our region is home to a host of exciting and ground-breaking test and demonstration facilities helping to bring new energy solutions to the market. Our test and demonstration specialities lie in Heat, Materials, Power, Systems and Transport.
Use the map and filters below to find out more about our region’s assets or see a full list here.
North East Future Energy Systems Today (North East FEST)
The North East Energy Catalyst has identified three central challenges which will deliver on our vision. These are global energy challenges which require continuing innovation and rapid deployment of solutions at scale:
- Maximising the deployment and life cycle value of low carbon power
- Commercialising and deploying scaled pathways to decarbonise heat
- Industrialising and mainstreaming the technology to decarbonise transport
We are tackling these challenges through a programme of projects we call our North East ‘Future Energy System Today’ programme (North East FEST). The programme will work to deliver large-scale solutions to these global energy challenges through innovation and demonstration and aims to drive growth in the North East. By sharing our learning to accelerate wider change we will help catalyse the creation of global markets in sectors of opportunity for both our region and the wider UK.
Building on our extensive existing asset base and programmes, we are continually developing a programme prospectus for North East FEST, for which we are seeking collaborators, sponsors and funders for projects.
Within this prospectus are a range of crucial project opportunities which we have identified and collaboratively developed to tackle our Catalysing Change Challenges.
These opportunities will unlock, at greater pace and scale, the potential of the North East to act as a catalyst region and deliver a Future Energy System Today, unlocking global markets for industry, delivering on the UK’s decarbonisation goals, and driving levelling up in the North East.
Download the brochure to learn more about North East FEST:
Programmes
The North East Energy Catalyst is involved in several projects to help bring forward solutions to global energy challenges. These include:
The Energy Innovation Challenge is working with businesses in our region to develop new products and services that could help to tackle some of the energy-related challenges the world is facing, and to support them to bring their ideas to market.
The initial rounds of the programme have been undertaken with challenges covering decentralised and decarbonised energy, data or digital-led solutions that can help businesses to track energy consumption and looking at new ways of using materials to reduce costs, improve efficiency, or bring other benefits to energy infrastructure.
Case studies of SMEs involved in the programme include:
- Research and development specialist TRL9
- Otaski Energy Solutions
- Data science consultancy Jumping Rivers
Learn more about the Energy Innovation Challenge Programme – download the brochure:
Funding opportunities
The North East Energy Catalyst runs regular challenges, inviting SMEs across the region to work with us on projects to look at new solutions to energy problems.