Business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg (right) with the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre's Jeff Pratt, inspecting a battery manufacturing line. Image: BEIS.
A competitive funding initiative launched by the government to support battery research and development will make £211 million available over the next three years.
The money will be targeted at advancing technology development and capabilities to scale-up manufacturing for batteries that can be used in applications like stationary energy storage and electric vehicles (EVs).
The government department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) launched the Faraday Challenge in 2017, named after 18th Century scientist and inventor Michael Faraday, who made key contributions to the understanding of electrochemistry.
Administered by groups including non-departmental public body UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and research institution The Faraday Institute, BEIS claimed that a total £541 million has been put into the initiative since its founding. A UKRI document with details of some of the 140 projects funded to date is available here from the body’s website.
They include a project to explore the feasibility of direct extraction of lithium from geothermal brine in Cornwall, southwest England, thermal control and thermal runaway suppression systems for lithium batteries, scaling up advanced battery materials and many more.
BEIS said the direct funding from the Faraday Challenge has to date stimulated a further £400 million in private investment. It has also enabled the Faraday Institution to team up with 500 researchers from 25 universities, and various spin-out companies have been created from research projects.
The latest funding will be disbursed between this year and 2025. Longer-term, BEIS believes its support can foster the creation of 100,000 related jobs in both battery gigafactories and the wider supply chain by 2040.
“Safe and powerful batteries are central to our plans to grow the industries of the future,” UK business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said.
“From our world leading renewables industry to our growing electric vehicle sector, secure supplies of batteries are key to delivering jobs and prosperity.”
To read the full version of this story, visit Energy-Storage.news.