Innovation Highways Phase 3

Innovation Highways Phase 3

Status: Live
Reference: NIA3_SGN0002
Lead Network: SGN
Start Date: 01 August 2026
End Date: 01 February 2026
Budget: £360,000150 =150 =£380,000
Funding Mechanism: Network Innovation Allowance
Technology: Carbon Emission Reduction Technologies, Gas Distribution Networks, Gas Transmission Networks, Stakeholder Engagement
Strategy Theme: Whole energy systems
Collaborating Networks: National Gas Transmission PLC, SGN
Project Partners: The project will be completed in collaboration with SGN and National gas. Other non-funding networks will be able to join the project at no cost during the project. Existing innovation ecosystems will be sought as interested stakeholders like the Energy Innovation Centre (EIC), Future Energy Networks and Energy Networks Association (ENA).

Abstract

Following on from the success of phase 2, the Innovation Highway phase 3 project will develop Project Synthesis, a new AI-enabled capability within the Ideaonomy Highway platform. Project Synthesis will surface, compare and synthesise historical innovation-project evidence against current SGN and National Gas innovation problems and challenge statements.

The capability will ingest and normalise project evidence from the Smarter Networks Portal (SNP) and Future Energy Networks (FEN) portal, including HTML and PDF sources such as closure reports, Project Eligibility Assessments (PEAs) and Annual Progress Reports. It will provide evidence-linked AI summaries showing what has worked, what failed, what has been learned and what remains unresolved so that learnings and outputs of previous knowledge can be more easily accessible.

This phase will help the energy networks reduce duplication of innovation spend, improve the quality and auditability of evidence underpinning new project proposals, shorten the time from problem identification to a fundable project, and increase confidence under RIIO-GD3 scrutiny.

The project provides significant potential for new learning. These learnings will be principally applied across the following areas:

How effectively historical innovation evidence from SNP and FEN can be transformed into a normalised, source-agnostic project data model.
How reliable AI synthesis can be made when outputs must remain evidence-linked, auditable and suitable for innovation governance.
Which types of project evidence are most useful for future proposal development, including closure reports, PEAs and Annual Progress Reports.
How energy networks and innovators interact with AI-supported evidence synthesis and which confidence cues or source links improve trust.
How to identify over-explored themes, under-invested gaps and potential collaboration opportunities across innovation portfolios.
How Project Synthesis can reduce duplicated discovery work and improve evidence quality for NIA, SIF and wider business-funded innovation.
What operating model, data governance and commercial readiness steps would be required for broader GB rollout with linkage into SIF ENIT challenges.

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