Clean technology development 

 


We create and develop low carbon enterprises in markets which have the potential to deliver significant carbon reductions and financial returns for the UK but where barriers to rapid deployment exist.
 
 


We aim to prove their commercial viability and provide co-investment and strategic opportunities to partners who can bring the skills and capital investment to complement those of the Carbon Trust.

For example, we work with InfraRed (formerly the HSBC Environmental Infrastructure fund) and OPTrust to build the Partnerships for Renewables (PfR) joint venture, which aims to deliver 500 megawatts (MW) of onshore wind power on public land over the next five to eight years.

Accelerating the commercialisation of low carbon technologies

Our technology accelerators focus on specific technologies and aim to address barriers to their large-scale deployment. Accelerators are developed in response to the identification of specific areas where Carbon Trust intervention can have the greatest impact in accelerating a sector as a whole.

To succeed, collaboration is needed. We work in partnership with the industries involved to demonstrate what’s possible and create the evidence and market confidence needed to accelerate deployment. We are working in a number of key sectors, including offshore wind, marine energy, low carbon buildings, industrial energy efficiency and biomass heat.

In 2008, we launched the Offshore Wind Accelerator, in collaboration with key industry players, to speed the development of the technology and to prove that costs can be reduced by 10%.

In October 2006, we launched the Marine Energy Accelerator, to accelerate cost reduction of wave and tidal stream energy technologies and make them cost competitive by 2020.