Businesses in the UK are being offered a share of £750,000 to develop data applications that address the challenges faced by organisations and individuals to deliver net zero local energy systems.

The data-driven applications must facilitate progress towards net zero local energy systems whilst improving people’s lives by combining energy data with data from other sectors.

The outputs must benefit the users of local energy systems and provide scalable opportunities to the funded organisation.

Ofgem is working with Innovate UK on its newly-launched ‘Modernising Energy Data Applications’ (MEDApps) competition, with the first phase awarding research and development contracts to demonstrate technical feasibility of the proposed solution.

The competition is encouraging partnerships with academic institutions or research organisations that facilitate applied development of emerging data and digital techniques including but not limited to machine learning techniques, simulation environments and edge computing.

That includes capturing users’ views on the proposed service, as well as evaluation of the benefits towards costs, decarbonisation, user experience and governance.

Feasibility study research and development contracts can be worth up to £150,000 per project, with each project starting in March 2021 and lasting up to three months.

The competition is open until 18th November 2020.