The UK Government has chosen three Scottish sustainable tech firms to share part of a £27 million investment package for several UK projects.

Scotland’s projects are among 19 from across the UK which have received government funding as part of its Sustainable Innovation Fund (SIF), which is delivered by Innovate UK.

Totalling £200m, the fund helps to boost companies recovering from the coronavirus pandemic and ensures that innovative ideas led by such firms are not lost. It is also aimed at supporting the UK’s goals to cut carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050.

Westminster’s latest funding forms part of a wider £750m package of grants and loans announced last April, which sits alongside the £500m Future Fund that provides match-funding to private investors.

The Scottish Government announced in January this year that it would be releasing a major £1.1 billion funding package to support jobs and skills in Scotland and to help the country’s economy recover post-Covid, as well as £1 million in funding, also announced in January, being made available to stimulate innovation in public transport tech solutions in Scotland.

Scottish firms included in the latest funding split include Glasgow-based Flex Marine Power, which has been awarded £1.86m to develop its 50kW SwimmerTurbine tidal turbine. The firm hopes to support UK ambitions to harness the country’s ‘abundant’ tidal resource for power generation and make it more commercially feasible.

Two Linlithgow-based businesses were also awarded part of the funding – medical waste specialist Impact Recycling got £2.98m, while recycled content verification firm SPRCOE received £752,876.

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Commenting on the funding, UK Energy Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said: “Reaching our net-zero goal will mean harnessing the innovation and creativity of entrepreneurs across the country, which is why I am thrilled to see Innovate UK backing these excellent projects across the UK.

“It is precisely this kind of ingenuity which will help us to build back greener from the pandemic.”

Simon Edmonds, deputy executive chair and chief business officer at Innovate UK said: “UK innovators have risen to the challenge of the pandemic to come up with big, bold ideas to help the economy roar back in a sustainable way.

“By supporting enterprise and academia all over the country, Innovate UK is backing not only business but our net-zero goals.”

In the last year, Innovate UK has supported British firms with £550m of grants and loans as part of its Covid-19 response. In total, 1,090 SIF projects have been supported with more than £160m.

In Scotland, the organisation has provided funding support for several innovate tech firms, including Edinburgh-based cleantech startup SolarisKit, the firm behind the world’s first flat-packable solar thermal collector. Innovate UK provided £250,000 of funding for SolarisKit in January last year through its Energy Catalyst Programme.