Exclusive: 20 Winners unveiled for £10m NZTC net zero tech competition

From “self-healing” paint to tackle corrosion to a battery which can store energy as “liquified air”, 20 winners have been unveiled as part of a £10 million funding competition from the NZTC.

The Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) launched its Open Innovation Programme in March, aimed at developing tech which could reduce emissions offshore, accelerate clean energy production and enable delivery of the UK’s net zero ambitions.

Of 154 applicants for the first £8m tranche, 20 have been selected, the majority of which are based in North-east Scotland. A second round for the remainder of the funding be announced later.

The full list of winners is below.

The NZTC competition winners were selected from a criteria of seven categories, including: carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), hydrogen and clean fuels, renewables and energy storage, zero emissions power, venting and flaring, integrity management and late life and decommissioning.

Among the winners is Copsys, which has designed an “intelligent digital skin” paint-based technology which can detect corrosion.

© Supplied

In the renewables category is Innovatium, which has designed a Liquid Air Battery which can store excess renewable power as high-density pressurised liquid air, which can be converted into electrical power. This can in turn significantly increase the availability of renewable energy sources.

In late life and decom, Sulmara Subsea is one NZTC competition winner, with an uncrewed drone system which will significantly reduce the size of vessel needed for offshore surveys, which is also applicable for offshore wind farm inspections.

Enertechnos is another winner, with a specialised cable designed to electrify North Sea oil and gas installations which deals with the issue of power being lost over longer distances.

© Supplied by NZTC

Heriot-Watt University bagged a place in the top 20 with a new tool to measure the probability of CO2 leaks from wells which are used for Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS).

Selection

Head of emissions reduction at the NZTC, Rebecca Allison, said whittling the competition roster down to 20 was a tough call – leading to a £1m increase to this round which was initially billed at £7m in March.

“There have been some really exciting technologies come through in the programme – each and every one of them has real potential.

“Out of the 154 applicants, there were only six that weren’t in scope which shows you the number of good ideas out there.

“They went through a robust screening in the industry to see how viable they were – and if we could have we would have supported more.”

© Supplied by NZTC

Each one of the projects has at least one industry sponsor and an NZTC project manager associated with it to provide technical expertise, guidance or feedback on development depending on its maturity.

Several are doing field trials and the NZTC is facilitating and exchange of data from the operator community to support developers reach technology commercialisation.

Call to action on net zero

The NZTC is sponsored by industry and £180m of UK and Scottish Government investment as part of the Aberdeen City Region Deal signed in 2016.

It made a “conscious decision” to launch a competition targeting some of these pressing areas for the sector amid the energy transition, rather than a more typical open call.

Ms Allison added: “We really wanted to put out a large call to action to stimulate a development community and reach out to other industries in the UK and globally to see which technologies are suitable for our space.

“We’ve always had solutions centres specific to industry challenges, so we looked across these areas and asked ‘where are some of the technology gaps, what has the supply chain got that we can them accelerate and de-risk that research and get it into a trial situation?’

“This is affordable technology for the net zero future.”

NZTC competition winners

The winners are as follows:

Late Life and Decom​ 

1.      CeraPhi Energy ​

Turning Oil and Gas liabilities into geothermal assets for net zero energy ​

Onshore field trial/ demonstration of heat and energy production via geothermal techniques​.

2.      Welldecommissioned​

Optimised Decommissioning as a stepping stone into the Energy Transition​

AI based software solution for use in the planning and optimisation of decommissioning activities​.

3.      Sulmara​ Subsea

Remote data acquisition & intelligence service for offshore energy decommissioning​.

A fully unmanned over the horizon surface vessel capable of gathering data real time via an onshore remote command centre​.

 

Well Integrity

4      isol8​

Eternal Barrier Material Development ​

Composite alloy barrier material (AlloyCrete) providing long-term well integrity assurance​.

5      Pipetech​

Downhole Scale Remediation ​

Scale remediation tool for the cleaning of hydrocarbon wells​.

 

Integrity Management – CUI​

6      Copsys Technologies ​

Eliminating CUI with Copsys Intelligent Digital Skin​

Intelligent Digital Skin paint-based technology used to detect and locate CUI​

7.     SubTeraNDT ​

Advancing an intelligent CUI and moisture pipeline inspection sensor ​

Handheld Millimetre Wave Corrosion Under Insulation Inspection System ​

8.      Advance Hall Sensors ​

Novel Magneto-imaging system for CUI mapping​

QWHE Camera providing high resolution, non-contact magnetic imaging of corrosion under insulation​

Venting & Flaring​

9.      Expro​

Real-Time Flare Emissions Measurement and Control​

Development and field trial of a real time flare emissions measurement and control system​

10.      Expro​

SmarTest flare-free closed chamber formation testing​

Downhole telemetry system used for the collection of reservoir data and fluid samples​

Zero Emissions Power​

11.      HiiROC in partnership with Centrica​

Decarbonising Gas Peakers through Hydrogen and Showcasing CO2 Sequestration through Solid Carbon​

Integration & demonstration of the HiiROC H2 production system into an existing ‘gas peaking’ plant (Centrica Brigg)​

Renewables

12.      Innovatium Group ​

PRISMA Liquid Air Battery​

Liquid Air Battery combining compressed air production and energy storage in the form of highly energy dense liquified air​

13.     Enertechnos Ltd ​

Marinisation of Capacitive Transfer System Cable for use in the Electrification of the North Sea​

Subsea power cable for use in offshore windfarms​

Hydrogen

14.      Ceimig​

Development and testing of supported iridium catalysts for PEMWE electrodes​

Development of a substrate to reduce the amount of iridium required for polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis (PEM) ​

15.      Oort Energy​

HyPX2 – High performance, high pressure electrolysis and compression​

Development of an integrated electrolyser and electrochemical compression stack for green hydrogen production​

16.      B9 Technologies ​

Demo of a high-efficiency Flow-Field Electrolyser for low-cost hydrogen production​

Development & validation of the B9 Flow-Field Electrolyser stack​

 CCUS

17.    Ai Exploration​

Novel Optical Sensors To Prevent Corrosion In Carbon Capture And Storage Operations​

Multispectral imaging corrosion sensor in CCS environmental conditions​​

18.      Pace CCS Ltd​

Predicting corrosive aqueous phase liquids in CCS pipelines induced by polar impurities​

Software/ modelling system to predict the corrosion risk to CCS pipelines​

19.      Heriot-Watt University​

Risk-based, Well Decommissioning Modelling Framework to CCUS Applications​

Modelling tool to analyse and predict the leakage wells in CCS fields​

20.      WesternGeco​

The use if surface DAS & adaptive monitoring to reduce CO2 plume monitoring​

A passive seismic and surface deployed distributed acoustic sensing monitoring system for CCUS applications​