UK Government Funds 24 Projects To Advance Energy Storage

The UK government has awarded more than GBP 6.7 million (USD 9.1m/EUR 8m) of funding under the first phase of its Longer Duration Energy Storage Demonstration competition, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced today.

Twenty-four UK projects developing innovative energy storage technologies will receive part of this funding.

The GBP-68-million competition is taking place in two phases, with several of the most promising Phase 1 projects to be awarded the remainder of the overall funding.

Examples of the initial set of projects include the development of thermal batteries, converting energy to hydrogen, a demonstration of vanadium flow battery, and the development of thermal and compressed air energy storage technology.

B9 Energy Storage, for instance, will receive GBP 986,082 for a 20-MW Power-to-X project at Ballylumford, Northern Ireland, where green hydrogen produced by electrolysers will be stored in underground salt caverns for use in transport and to replace natural gas in fuel blending trials. It could lead large-scale deployments connected to offshore wind farms in the future.

“Driving forward energy storage technologies will be vital in our transition towards cheap, clean and secure renewable energy,” said Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Hands.

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