Mission Possible: The role of challenge prizes in a revitalised UK Innovation Strategy
Green Travel Infrastructure Prize A £10m prize for the first team to demonstrate a reliable solution that can charge and run an electric bus fleet of at least 50 vehicles across a city for a month Why a prize? The Green Travel Infrastructure Prize will incentivise innovators to solve many of the barriers to rollout at scale of heavy electric vehicles (buses and HGVs). To
Technology leadership for the UK The prize would support innovative research and development by UK companies working on decarbonisation, electricity and batteries. The UK has extensive strength, both in the technology and in the policy, regulatory and financial expertise needed to roll out this infrastructure.
win the final prize, innovators must run an in-route electric charging infrastructure while a range of vehicles test out simulated bus and HGV routes to test its capabilities.
Alignment with the seven technology families of UK strength and opportunity Advanced Materials and Manufacturing AI, Digital and Advanced Computing Bioinformatics and Genomics Engineering Biology Electronics, Photonics and Quantum Energy and Environment Technologies Robotics and Smart Machines
The problem
The impact
Key barriers in the UK’s transition to net zero include revamping the transport sector (electrifying fossilfuelled transport modes) and providing the green energy supply and infrastructure that enables this. Rollout of in-route charging of zero-emission vehicles (in particular heavy vehicles such as buses and trucks) faces specific issues, including balancing electric demand on the grid, providing infrastructure and ensuring collaboration between the key stakeholders (operators, local authorities, regulators, energy companies).
The Green Travel Infrastructure Prize would incentivise collaborative research, development and demonstration of low-carbon bus technologies. This would eliminate a major source of CO2 emissions while improving urban air quality, raising the quality of public transport and creating UK leading technology firms in this critical growth area.
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The mission The Green Travel Infrastructure Prize would contribute to the UK’s mission to reach net zero emissions by 2050.