Five winning projects will share £32 million in government funding in the second phase of the Longer Duration Energy Storage competition.
The first phase of the competition saw £2.7 million awarded to 19 projects. This second phase provides further funding to the most promising projects from Phase 1, enabling them to build prototypes and demonstrators to bring their projects to life.
Minister for Climate Graham Stuart said: “Accelerating renewables is key to boosting our energy resilience. Energy storage helps us get the full benefit of these renewables, improving efficiency and helping drive down costs in the long term. This £32.9 million government backing will enable green innovators across the UK to develop this technology, helping create new jobs and encouraging private investment, while also safeguarding the UK’s energy security.”
The funded projects are:
RheEnergise Ltd, which will receive £8.24 million to build a demonstrator near Plymouth of its ‘High-Density Hydro’ pumped energy storage system. The system is similar to a water pumped storage plant but it uses a fluid more than two and half times denser than water, which allows it to use gentle slopes instead of steep dam walls or high mountains.
EDF UK R&D, the University of Bristol, Urenco and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), will receive £7.73 million to use excess electricity to produce hydrogen via electrolysis utilising depleted uranium at UKAEA’s Culham Science Centre in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
StorTera , based in Edinburgh, will receive £5.02million for a prototype demonstrator of itsd highly energy dense single liquid flow battery (SLIQ).
Sunamp Ltdbased in East Lothian, will receive £9.25 million for a project that will trial its thermal storage system in 100 homes. It will extend Sunamp’s existing heat battery to provide increased storage duration and capacity and pair it with household energy systems to cover periods of low renewables generation.
The University of Sheffield will receive £2.60 million to develop a prototype domestic modular thermal energy storage system. The systems will be manufactured by Loughborough University and deployed at the Creative Energy Homes campus at the University of Nottingham.