Competitions

On this page, you can find out about our funding competitions, including the Network Innovation Competition (NIC) and the Masters of Innovation Challenge.

Our Competitions – your idea could help future generations

At National Grid, we’re committed to being an innovative leader in energy management and safeguarding the world around us for future generations.

Building a better future is something we can’t achieve alone, so twice a year we hold two innovation competitions. We invite innovators across the industry to help us confront and resolve the challenges facing our electricity transmission business.

Our two funding competitions are:

  • Masters of Innovation Challenge

  • Network Innovation Competition (NIC).

Masters of Innovation Challenge 2019

Could you be the next UK’s master of innovation? Every year we set three innovation challenges and give you two months to come up with ideas.

Whether you’re a university with a talent for developing new technology, a small business, consultancy or a large supplier, we’d love to hear from you.

Our innovation team will review your proposals and will put forward the best ideas for funding under the Network Innovation Allowance (NIA).

Teaming up with an organisation as large and well-resourced as ours provides an opportunity for you to bring your ideas out of the lab and into a solution that benefits our entire industry.

We’ll update this page soon with more information on our next Master of Innovation Challenge including entry details.

Our 2018 winners

Our 2018 winners were, in no particular order:

3D Thermal imaging of Cable Sealing Ends – Manchester University

Acoustic Emission in Electrical Assets – Cardiff University

Smart Geo Grid – Cardiff University

Active Power Control Unit - Siemens

Unlocking Transmission Capacity Through Energy Storage - Quanta

Weather Analytics for Improved Transmission Constraint Management – Digital Engineering

Weather Analytics for Renewable Deployment – Digital Engineering.

The Deeside Project – part of our NIC portfolio

If your proposal leads to a successful bid in 2019 it would join our cutting edge NIC innovation portfolio alongside the Deeside Project which has now been renamed as the Deeside Centre for Innovation (DCI).

DCI is Europe’s first innovation centre where electricity assets can be tested off-grid, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Visit the website