£20m earmarked for energy storage competitions

Government plans to make £20m available for two energy storage competitions could help to deliver payback of £10bn a year, if the findings of an Imperial College London report prove to be workable.


The new competitions are due to open to applicants within the next few weeks with the aim of getting the first projects underway early next year.

Competition one, the Energy Storage Technology Demonstration Competition, will offer organisations the ‘opportunity to secure funding to develop and demonstrate innovative energy storage technologies which can address the future grid-scale storage needs for the UK electricity network’.

Competition two, DECC’s Energy Storage Component Research and Feasibility Study Competition, will offer grant funding, on a competitive basis, to ‘support component level research in relation to storage technologies’.

According to an Imperial College London report, published in June this year, progress in each of these areas could help deliver massive benefits based of their finding that ‘under a 2050 high renewables scenario’ the application of energy storage technologies could potentially generate total savings of £10bn a year.

A prompt welcome for the competitions has come from the electrical storage company, S&C Electric, whose managing director, Andrew Jones, said they will provide ‘much needed impetus’ to improve the efficiency of the electricity grid.

Although the competitions have yet to be launched officially, DECC is encouraging technology innovators to register their interest now.

edie staff

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