Area of investment and support

Area of investment and support: Clean energy theme

The clean energy theme will lead the research on the discovery, development and deployment of clean energy technologies through a whole systems approach. It aims to:

deliver affordable, sustainable, and secure energy solutions that enable the UK to achieve net zero by 2050
drive green growth by ensuring economic prosperity and climate resilience

Partners involved:: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

The scope and what we're doing

The clean energy theme aims to position the UK to meet its energy and environmental targets and policy goals through investing in world-class research.

The overarching goal of the clean energy theme is to invest in research and innovation to secure a low-carbon future, through the creation of reliable, economically viable energy systems while protecting the natural environment, resources and quality of life.

Our aims are to realise the benefits from past research and to focus our resources and build our portfolio in areas with the potential to meet the UK’s 2050 climate change and net zero targets.

The clean energy theme promotes multidisciplinary partnerships between researchers, industry, funders and government departments, and has a current portfolio in excess of £450 million.

It supports EPSRC’s Engineering Net Zero mission-inspired priority and contributes to wider UKRI activity, including the Clean Energy IS8 programme. This helps align research and innovation investments across UKRI and support the UK’s transition to a low carbon energy system.

Research areas

It covers the following research areas:

Our approach

We work with researchers, businesses, policymakers and other funders to identify emerging opportunities and challenges in clean energy research.

Our priorities are informed by evidence, stakeholder engagement and advice from the EPSRC Clean Energy Scientific Advisory Team (SAT). This helps ensure our investments support the UK’s research and innovation needs and contribute to long-term energy and environmental goals.

How we engage with the community

We engage with the research and innovation community through workshops, meetings and ongoing discussions with academic, industry and government stakeholders.

This engagement helps us understand emerging research priorities, identify opportunities for collaboration and ensure our investments respond to the needs of the sector.

Why we invest in this area

Research is the key to achieving an affordable low carbon energy system while conserving our natural resources, the environment and our quality of life.

To help combat climate change the UK has a target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, an enormous task requiring changes to every sector of energy generation, supply, use and regulation, and the decarbonisation of sectors across the UK. These reductions need to be delivered while creating a secure energy system for the UK:

providing affordable energy
enabling continued economic growth
limiting impact on scarce natural resources and the environment

Challenges

The key short-term challenge is to rapidly accelerate the deployment of green energy technologies that decarbonise our energy supply and increase energy efficiency in buildings, industry and transport sectors. There is also an opportunity to develop existing networks and infrastructure to support the changing clean energy landscape, such as through carbon capture and storage and large-scale deployment of renewables.

Research for our future

It is only through fundamental research focused on addressing these challenges that truly transformative changes to our energy future beyond 2050 can occur. The clean energy theme, working with UKRI partners, is uniquely positioned to provide policymakers with guidance about the development of potential energy scenarios and their impact on citizens, the economy and the environment. This demands understanding of behaviour change, environmental systems analysis and technological innovation.