Zero Emission Vessels and Infrastructure 2: Energy Efficiency (ZEVI 2)

Zero Emission Vessels and Infrastructure 2: Energy Efficiency (ZEVI 2)

Historical reference: Innovate UK’s competition page marks this round closed. UKRI says that the closing date was extended to 17 September 2026 at 11:00am UK time because of technical problems with the Innovation Funding Service. The official page does not announce another Energy Efficiency round. The information below describes the closed call for people reviewing the programme or an earlier application; it is not an open application invitation.

Key details

Purpose of the Energy Efficiency strand

ZEVI 2 was a UK Government clean maritime competition, with funding from the Department for Transport and delivery by Innovate UK. It formed part of the UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions (UK SHORE) programme. The competition sought UK business-led development and build of technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from maritime activity, followed by extended operation in a representative real-world setting. The Energy Efficiency strand focused on vessel energy-efficiency technology and any accompanying innovative infrastructure upgrades.

This strand was not a general fund for routine vessel improvements. A proposal needed to develop and build a technical solution, deploy it with suitable users and infrastructure, and demonstrate it under credible operating conditions. The competition placed particular interest on projects involving multiple vessels and multiple end users, while also welcoming other proposals that met the scope. Projects needed to establish how the technology would be used and how its effect on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions would be assessed.

The IFS guidance listed examples of relevant technical themes: wind-assisted propulsion; hull efficiency; air lubrication; onboard waste-heat recovery; propeller and rudder flow-conditioning devices; onboard solar power; smart vessel energy management; efficient auxiliary systems; in-port hull management such as cleaning and propeller polishing; and onboard carbon capture and storage. Carbon-capture proposals needed a feasible plan for using, permanently storing, or disposing of captured carbon dioxide so that the project could demonstrate a significant greenhouse-gas reduction.

Operational measures such as speed optimisation, just-in-time arrival, voyage optimisation, or ballast and trim optimisation were only in scope when developed as part of a project focused on technical energy measures. Digital, smart-shipping, and autonomy technologies likewise needed to support one of the qualifying technical themes. A software or operational proposal on its own would not meet that stated condition.

Who could apply

The competition was open to collaborations only. To lead, an organisation had to be a UK-registered business of any size. The funded collaboration needed the lead and at least one other organisation to request funding and explain the reason for collaborating and the consortium structure in the application. A prospective consortium therefore had to agree its lead, funded partners, work split, and delivery responsibilities before completing the application. Other organisations could join without requesting grant funding; the official guidance allowed non-funded UK, EU, and other international partners, whose project costs had to be met from their own resources. If invited into IFS, those non-funded partners’ costs still counted toward total eligible project costs.

The whole project had to fit the cost and delivery limits in the IFS guidance. Eligible project costs had to total between £6 million and £60 million. The grant request could not exceed £30 million for the project, and no more than £20 million could be allocated to a single participant. For commercial or economic research and development costs, maximum intervention rates depended on project type and company size. Industrial research could receive up to 70% for micro or small organisations, 60% for medium-sized organisations, and 50% for large organisations. Experimental development could receive up to 45%, 35%, and 25% respectively. The organisation receiving a grant had to fund the balance of its eligible project costs. Separate rules applied to eligible capital costs, including a stated maximum intervention rate of 80% for relevant capital equipment. Each organisation needed a realistic financing and delivery plan that reflected its own eligible costs and the competition’s funding rules; the competition-wide fund was not an individual project award.

Projects had to start by 1 April 2027, claim all grant funding by 31 December 2029, and then complete a non-funded demonstration lasting three years. The demonstration had to start by 1 January 2030 and end by 31 December 2032. These were linked obligations: applicants needed to show how development and build would lead to operational deployment, and how the team would sustain the technology after funded grant activity ended.

The strand boundaries mattered. If an efficiency technology was installed on a vessel whose primary project purpose was to fund a 100% battery-electric vessel, the guidance directed applicants to the Electric Power strand. If the vessel was primarily funded to use alternative fuels, the relevant strand was Alternative Fuels. Applicants had to check strand fit carefully because applying to the wrong competition could make an application ineligible.

What the call would not fund

The published guidance excluded several categories, including projects focused on improving combustion efficiency or the design of conventional fossil-fuel powertrains, except for waste-heat recovery; funded costs for fossil fuels and fossil-fuel powertrains; non-100%-battery-electric vessels; marine conservation and ecology; personal watercraft; submarines and submersible vessels; military applications; duplicate innovations; and proposals already covered by commercial agreements to deliver the proposed solution. It also set out restrictions concerning synthetic fuels and removal of non-greenhouse or indirect greenhouse gases from conventional fossil-fuel combustion products.

These exclusions should be read with the detailed IFS scope text rather than reduced to a broad label such as “maritime decarbonisation.” For example, the presence of an efficiency feature did not automatically make a battery-electric or alternative-fuel vessel proposal an Energy Efficiency application; the principal funded vessel technology determined the appropriate strand. Equally, a project involving operational optimisation needed a qualifying technical measure at its centre.

How applications were submitted

Applications for the closed round were made through Innovate UK’s Innovation Funding Service (IFS). The live competition is closed, and a new applicant cannot submit to it. The following notes record the former process for applicants, consortium partners, and people examining a past bid.

The lead organisation created or accessed the IFS application, invited the project team, and assigned sections to partners. Before submission, the lead was responsible for checking that the information was correct, that the project met the eligibility and scope criteria, and that all application sections were complete. Partners had to complete their assigned sections and accept the terms and conditions. The competition allowed an application to be reopened after submission, but it had to be submitted again before the closing time for the final version to count.

The application form had four sections:

1. Project details: background information such as the project team, title, start date and duration, research category, summary, public description, and scope response. The public description was intended for publication if the project received funding, so applicants were instructed not to include commercially sensitive information there.
2. Application questions: the project case, including how the proposal fitted the competition and its delivery, technical, deployment, and impact rationale. Applicants needed to answer the questions in the form and observe each question’s own instructions and word limits.
3. Finances: partner-level costs and grant requests. Consortium budgets needed to respect the total eligible cost range, project ceiling, participant ceiling, and cost eligibility guidance.
4. Project Impact: evidence and explanation of the expected effects of the work, including the case for deployment and the benefits claimed by the consortium.

Applicants were advised to read the IFS guidance before beginning. Successful applicants would then go through project setup and checks before starting work. The archived application steps do not replace the original competition brief, its cost guidance, or an organisation’s grant offer documents.

Evidence a strong proposal needed

For this strand, a credible technical case had to connect the proposed equipment or system to vessel energy performance. Teams needed to state the baseline against which they would measure change, explain how the technology would be installed and used, and identify the data that would show whether it worked. A claim of lower energy demand is more useful when tied to a defined vessel, operating profile, measurement plan, and method for separating the technology’s effect from changes in weather, route, loading, or operating practice.

Deployment planning was equally important. The proposal needed to make clear who would own and operate the vessel or supporting infrastructure, where demonstrations would take place, how end users would participate, and how the equipment would be maintained through the funded build and the later unfunded demonstration. Where infrastructure upgrades were part of the concept, the consortium needed to explain their technical relationship to the vessel solution and how they would be used in operation.

The project plan also needed to account for the full delivery sequence. Development, integration, testing, installation, and operational use had to fit the funded period and lead into the three-year demonstration. A plan that depended on an unconfirmed vessel, unavailable port access, or an undefined post-grant operating arrangement would leave material delivery questions unanswered. Partners should have had named responsibilities for engineering, vessel access, installation, data collection, and ongoing operation.

Financial evidence had to match that work plan. Each partner’s budget needed a clear link to its project activities, and the grant request had to stay within both the project and participant limits. Teams also needed to distinguish grant-funded development and build activity from the later demonstration, which was explicitly non-funded. The competition-wide £150 million headline was shared across ZEVI 2 and should not have been treated as an expected allocation for an individual consortium.

Timeline and archive notes

The official UKRI opportunity page records the competition opening on 26 March 2026 and the final closing time on 17 September 2026 at 11:00am UK time. UKRI explicitly says that it extended the closing date to 17 September because of technical issues with the Innovation Funding Service. The competition is marked closed. The linked Innovate UK competition brief supplies the detailed scope and application requirements; its archived timetable is not a new application window. Neither official page announces a replacement round, so prospective applicants should not treat the historic deadline, budget, eligibility rules, or form as current funding terms.

The IFS competition timetable also listed invitations to interview on 28 October 2026, interview panels running from 23 November 2026 through 4 December 2026, and applicant notifications on 4 January 2027. These were assessment milestones for the closed round, not dates on which a new application could be submitted. The project start and grant-claim milestones were conditions for successful projects, while the non-funded demonstration was a further delivery commitment.

The Energy Efficiency strand is best understood as a large collaborative demonstration competition with strict technical scope and a substantial operating commitment. Its archived details can still help a consortium interpret an old application or compare the design of later maritime funding calls, but any later programme must be checked against its own official terms. Until Innovate UK or UKRI publishes another round, no new deadline, award cap, eligibility rule, or application step should be inferred from this closed competition.