At the Ayrton Forum on the 22 June, the UK government announced an £88 million extension to the Transforming Energy Access (TEA) platform.

TEA is the flagship Global Research and Technology Development (GRTD) research and innovation platform supporting early-stage testing and scale up of innovative clean energy technologies and business models in developing countries, targeting the 655 million people still without access to electricity.

Working in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Indo-Pacific, TEA has already:

• improved access to clean energy for more than 36 million people in developing countries (including 17 million women) through the incubation and scaling of clean energy businesses in sectors like distributed solar, green mini-grids, and energy-efficient appliances
• stimulated UK-led R&D of 951 new technologies and innovative business models in areas such as energy storage, cooling, electric cooking, green grids, remote network management, financing platforms, energy access crowdfunding, clean transport and e-waste recycling
• developed over 1,000 substantive publications (284 peer-reviewed) including research reports, journal articles, and market data that provide insights across a wide range of topics, for example: sodium-ion batteries, productive energy, green jobs, food preservation, e-mobility, health facility electrification, disability inclusion and crowdfunding 
• created and supported 210,000 sustainable long-term jobs (including 49,000 jobs for women) and supported over 7,000 people with job placements and training in clean energy businesses
• leveraged £1.8bn of investment into clean energy research, innovation and scale-up from both private and public sources (eight times the funding spent by TEA to date)
• reduced 6.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, the same as the annual carbon footprint of over 1m people in the UK

TEA is part of the UK’s International Climate Finance (ICF) portfolio and the main FCDO delivery mechanism under the Ayrton Fund, which brings together the UK’s clean energy research, development and demonstration (RD&D) portfolio under a single cross government framework spanning the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

TEA is delivered through five Tier 1 partners — the Carbon Trust, Innovate UK, Shell Foundation, CLASP and the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) — which have in turn supported a network of 840 innovators, academics, entrepreneurs and civil society partners working in more than 60 countries.

TEA R&D funding has played a catalytic role in bringing new technologies and business models closer to real-world use, and helping innovators attract investment. The platform has supported the growth of many pioneering clean energy businesses, including for example, Sheffield-based MOPO, which has developed and scaled a battery rental model now operating in six African countries: Kenya, Nigeria, DRC, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Chad and Uganda. To date, MOPO has completed more than 40 million battery rentals, enabling households and businesses across Africa to power phones, homes, e-motorbikes and small enterprises. It has also secured nearly £30m in large-scale investment from the likes of Octopus Energy in the UK, BII, Norfund and others.

TEA has also supported the design and development of innovative platforms, including for example Odyssey Energy Solutions, which has grown into the world’s largest climate‑tech investment and asset‑management platform for distributed renewable energy. It now underpins the World Bank’s $750m Nigeria DARES programme, has facilitated $3 billion in finance, monitors 3 million energy assets, and has expanded clean energy access for millions of people. It recently secured $7.5m from BII and $7.5m from the African Development Bank to help close a critical supply chain financing gap in Mission 300.

Since 2024/25, FCDO Country Posts have also been funding clean energy demonstrators via TEA, with £21m committed so far in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Indonesia and the Pacific to support the demonstration and scale-up of clean energy innovations in specific geographic contexts, complementing TEA’s R&D investments.

Together, these results show the importance of sustained investment in clean energy innovation. By combining research, real‑world delivery and strong global partnerships, TEA is turning new ideas into practical solutions that improve lives and support a more resilient and climate‑secure future. As TEA enters its next phase, it will focus on scaling what works, building on ten years of learning to deploy solutions faster and at greater scale, with stronger links to finance and policy.