A consortium led by Midlands-based company, Lontra, has been awarded a ￡1.5million grant by Innovate UK to apply the firm’s award-winning Blade Compressor technology to energy generation. The Energy Catalyst grant from by Innovate UK aims to support business-led innovations to bring concepts to commercial readiness. Lontra will lead the consortium set up by 2020 Power Generation (2PG) with Integral Powertrain (IP), and Nottingham University to increase the fuel efficiency of the 2PG engine used for 1MW power generation – the most common size of generator used for applications ranging from data centres to manufacturing plants. “As a UK-based consortium, Lontra and partners of the project are powering forward to reduce carbon emissions and energy costs,” said Peter Dirken from Innovate UK. “The investment in home-grown innovations bolsters the UK’s competitive edge on a global scale.” The two-year project will reduce carbon emissions and energy costs, contributing to the Government’s goals to reduce energy emissions by 35% by 2020. The project will apply Lontra’s Blade Compressor as a turbo compounding technology. The grant provides full funding to take the technology from concept through to hardware and testing stages. Steve Lindsey, CEO and founder of Lontra said: “Leading the consortium is a first for Lontra and marks significant progress in the development of the Blade Compressor. It is a huge opportunity for Lontra to take the lead on new innovations within the engineering sector to harness the global market and the huge energy savings our product offers.”