Scotland’s Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) has set out its ambitious innovation priorities for the next decade, with the aim of accelerating startups and infrastructure projects to create skilled jobs and commercialise technologies in support of the transition to net zero.

NZTC’s Net Zero Technology: Innovation Priorities 2025-2035 report outlines the organisation’s plans for new, industry-led programmes that will act as technology accelerators and help with the build-out of strategic net zero infrastructure projects.

The Technology Trials Programme will utilise co-investment between NZTC and industry partners to test new technologies for net zero in live conditions, with each strand containing a portfolio of projects aimed at trialling new tech across operational environments.

While these portfolios may include technical studies and technology development projects, the ultimate goal will be to prove the technologies’ readiness for scale and to fast-track commercialisation for wider industry adoption.

Meanwhile, the NZTC also wants to build on the success of its TechX Clean Energy Accelerator Programme, providing a ‘boot camp’ for early-stage startups, giving new firms an intensive 18-week training scheme that covers funding, tuition and mentorship to help them grow and progress their solutions to commercialisation.

According to this latest strategy document, a new cohort of 10-12 startups will progress through the programme each year, with successful participants receiving a share of £500,000 in grant funding to develop their technology.

Likewise, the Rapid Infrastructure Deployment Programme will deliver a pathway for investment, but for national, regional and local clean energy infrastructure projects rather than startups.

Focusing on projects that need more collaboration and industry support, this accelerator will look to generate ideas, identify opportunities and develop investment cases while coordinating between industry and funding organisations, all in the aim of de-risking infrastructure investment opportunities.

Similarly, through the Joint Industry Programmes, the NZTC will look to de-risk investment in new technologies, targeting specific individual projects that focus on common challenges its partners want to address.

Fully funded by industry, the NZTC said collaborative schemes like this are essential in allowing its partners to share both the costs and risks of developing new net-zero tech. 

Through these programmes, the NZTC hopes to accelerate at least one hundred startups, deliver around 1,500 jobs, and commercialise at least twenty new technologies, all focused on key areas of development, including offshore renewables and grid infrastructure, hydrogen and alternative fuels, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and industrial decarbonisation.

The organisation already boasts considerable success, claiming that over the past nine years, it has created over 1,500 jobs, fast-tracked the commercialisation of 59 technologies and supported 117 startups.

Recommended reading

• NZTC Launches Electrolyser Tech Funding Competition
• NZTC Help Launch UK Centre for Advancing Geothermal Energy
• NZTC Opens Clean Energy Accelerator Applications

“The energy transition presents an unparalleled opportunity for economic growth, but we need to act now to realise this,” said Luca Corradi, the NZTC’s chief technology officer, writing in the foreword to the report.

“To fully capitalise on this opportunity, it is imperative that government, industry, academia and investors collaborate to foster the growth of domestic businesses capable of competing in international markets.

“NZTC is committed to continuing our mission to deliver the transition through technology innovation, maintaining and building on the UK’s reputation as world leaders in delivering net zero.”