Ofgem has chosen 10 projects to receive a total funding of £59.4 million for innovation in transporting energy around Britain.

It is part of the regulator’s three innovation competitions that aim to make the energy networks smarter, accelerate the development of low carbon energy and help consumers save money.

Successful projects include developing robots to help monitor and repair gas mains and a trialling energy efficiency and demand-side response with fuel poor and vulnerable customers.

Ofgem picked only 10 out of the 16 bids as it “could not be confident that all projects were sufficiently developed”. A total of £109 million was available for the 16 projects.

Hannah Nixon, Senior Partner, Distribution said: “Innovation is integral to the future development of Britain’s energy networks… I am sure that this year’s projects will continue to provide crucial learning and enable real savings to be delivered for existing and future consumers.”

This is the first year of the network innovation competitions (NICs), which provides up to £27 million of funding per year for onshore and offshore electricity transmission companies and up to £18 million for gas distribution and transmission firms.