Applied Research is funded by the UK Government primarily via Innovate UK, within the UK Research & Innovation (UKRI). Innovate UK was formerly known as the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) prior to 2014. Its role is to promote and support research, development and exploitation of technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life.
Partly in response to the plan for all new vehicles to be electric and zero emissions vehicles by 2040, the Faraday Battery Challenge will invest in research and innovation projects and new facilities to scale-up and advance the production, use and recycling of batteries. This will also help advance development for other applications.
The aim is to link energy supply, storage and use, and funding will be in industry and research to develop systems to support the move to renewable energy.
| Programme |
Funding Agency |
Description |
Committed Funds |
Period |
Representative Annual Spend |
| Energy Research Accelerator | Innovate UK | The Energy Research Accelerator (ERA) is made up of eight internationally-renowned Midlands universities, part of the Midlands Innovation partnership, together with the British Geological Survey, and a large number of private sector collaborators. It is a high profile programme consisting of £60m capital investment from Innovate UK and £120m of match funding, from a large number of stakeholders.
Partner universities are Aston, Birmingham, Cranfield, Keele, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, and Warwick (Warwick Manufacturing Group).
The ERA is addressing challenges in energy generation, energy storage, energy integration, and end use technologies. Key priorities within the ERA Energy Storage challenge are hydrogen storage (Birmingham, Nottingham), battery storage (Warwick, Leicester), thermo-mechanical storage (Birmingham, Loughborough, Nottingham and Warwick, and the British Geological Survey), mechanical energy (compressed air) storage (Nottingham), thermo-chemical storage, and hybrid systems (Birmingham).
Members of the ERA are working with the Faraday Institution to help develop battery technologies, with topics including recycling and reuse, extending battery life and battery system modelling. | £60m | April 2016 onwards | |
| ISCF Faraday Battery Challenge | UKRI | The ISCF Faraday Battery Challenge, is one of 15 Challenges funded by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, and will develop batteries that are cost-effective, high-quality, durable, safe, low-weight and recyclable. Funding is provided for collaborative research and development projects, and includes creating the £78m Faraday Institution at the Harwell Science and Innovation campus to speed up research into battery technologies.
Research projects led by Universities are described in Section 3. | up to £246m | 2018-2022 | £61m |
| ISCF Faraday Battery Challenge | UKRI | Funding for development of technology for electric car batteries was announced on 11 June 2019, to support innovative work of UK companies.
Three awards were made to industry for development of a UK supply of lithium, maximising battery performance, and using artificial intelligence in battery manufacture. | £23m | June 2019 | £5m |
| ISCF Prospering from the Energy Revolution | UKRI | Prospering from the Energy Revolution is one of 15 Challenges funded by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and aims to create more efficient smart energy systems to intelligently link energy supply, storage and use and support the move to renewable energy.
A Call for Detailed designs of smart, local energy systems(Close date 7 August 2019) invited proposals for designs for local energy systems, to deliver cleaner, cheaper energy services across a variety of technologies, markets, technological maturities and research categories.
To bring forward novel research in local energy systems and accelerate uptake, value and impact, £8 million will go to setting up EnergyREV, an energy revolution research consortium. | up to £102.5m | 2018-2022 | £25m |
| Energy Systems Catapult | Innovate UK UKRI | Innovate UK established Catapult Centres as a new addition to its range of programmes to stimulate innovation. In addition to funding received from Innovate UK, direct contracts with UK business, as well as external funding form a significant part of the overall funding for the Catapults.
The Energy Systems Catapult has developed a range of unique Capabilities and Assets to help innovators, SMEs, industry, academia, regulators and Government to transform the UK energy system to meet carbon reduction targets and achieve our clean growth ambitions, and includes capabilities in Networks and Energy Storage. | £270.9m
(total for the High Value Manufacturing Centre and the Energy Systems Catapult) | 2018 onwards | £20m |
| Energy Revolution Research Consortium (EnergyREV) | EPSRC UKRI | - EP/S031863/1 Energy Revolution Research Consortium - Core – EnergyREV
- EP/S031898/1 Energy Revolution Research Consortium - Plus - EnergyREV - Next Wave of Local Energy Systems in a Whole Systems Context.
The University of Strathclyde is leading EnergyREV, the Energy Revolution Research Consortium (ERRC) with 29 investigators across 22 universities, forming a network of researchers and stakeholders to help to put the UK at the forefront of knowledge services for integrated energy systems.
The EnergyREV consortium will work with the Energy Systems Catapult to enable and inform demonstrators (funded by the ISCF Prospering from the Energy Revolution PFER programme) through their lifetime; undertaking analysis, evaluation and assessment of the demonstrators, building and driving best practice and leading knowledge exchange through national and international engagement with policy, academic and industrial communities.
Additionally, EnergyREV will deliver its own strategic research projects that address some of the industrial challenges in developing local, investable, consumer-centred energy approaches.
EnergyREV has shaped and defined a strategic programme of applied interdisciplinary research which aims to achieve significant outputs in the areas of whole energy systems and smart local energy systems.
EnergyREV includes investigators in many Universities and has 20 industrial collaborators. | £7,966,339 | Dec 18 - Mar 22 | £2m |
| Grid-scale energy storage R&D | EPSRC UKRI | Grid-scale energy storage was identified in the Autumn Statement 2012 as one of the Eight Great Technologies to drive UK growth. Grid-scale energy storage received an Capital Grant of £30 million with additional funding contributions of £9.8m from higher education institutions and £5.8m from industrial partners (total of £45.6m). Funding was provided to 17 Universities for 5 projects. (also see Section 6). - EP/K002252/1 Energy Storage for Low Carbon Grids
- Grid Connected Energy Storage Research Demonstrator
- Manchester-Liverpool Advanced Grid-scale Energy Storage R&D facilities
- EP/L017725/1 Centre for Cryogenic Energy Storage
- ThermExS Lab: thermal energy storage lab
- The IMAGES project was announced around the same time.
EP/K002228/1 Integrated, Market-fit and Affordable Grid-scale Energy Storage (IMAGES) | £45.6m | 2013 on | |
| Energy Technologies Institute - Energy Storage and Distribution | Energy Technologies Institute | The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) was a public-private partnership between global energy and engineering companies and the UK Government.
Its role was to act as a conduit between academia, industry and the government to accelerate the development of low carbon technologies.
Energy storage and distribution was one of ETI’s eight technology programme areas.
An ETI project resulted in development of the world’s first pumped heat energy storage system.
After 12 years of research, the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has now closed. Available data and findings from the ETI’s programmes are available online through the Programme pages and Knowledge Zone until 2025, and the project results will also be available from the ETI Publications component of the UKERC Energy Data Centre.
Much of the capability developed by the ETI now resides with the Energy Systems Catapult, the Centre for Sustainable Roadfreight and others.
The Energy System Modelling Environment (ESME) developed by ETI was transferred to the Energy Systems Catapult. | | | |
| Carbon Trust Future Energy Systems | Carbon Trust | Established in 2001, the Carbon Trust works with businesses, governments and institutions around the world, helping them contribute to and benefit from a more sustainable future through carbon reduction, resource efficient strategies, and commercialising low carbon businesses, systems and technologies.
The Carbon Trust co-ordinated funding by three major utilities, E.ON, SSE and Scottish Power, as well as the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Scottish Government to produce and publish an Energy Storage Report in March 2016 | | | |
| Challenge Led Applied Systems Programme (CLASP) | Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) | STFC External Innovations runs a Challenge Led Applied Systems Programme (CLASP) to support the application and commercialisation of STFC research in the key global research challenge areas of energy, environment, healthcare and security. Individual annual calls are aligned to specific challenge areas.
Key priority areas in the 2013 CLASP Energy Call included grid-scale storage methods.
The scope of the CLASP 2021 Call is Healthcare and Energy. | £2m per annum, total for all challenge areas | 2021 | £600k total for all challenge areas |
| Name |
Description |
Sub-topics covered |
No of Staff |
Sector |
| ITM Power | ITM Power participated in a collaborative project together with E.ON, University of Nottingham and others, on coated metal hydrides for hydrogen energy storage. The project is part-funded by the Technology Strategy Board over the period 2011-2014. Hydrogen storage in metal hydrides could be part of an electrical energy storage system based on electrolysers and fuel cells.
The Carbon Trust’s Polymer Fuel Cell Challenge supported development of polymer fuel cells by ITM Power and ACAL Energy.
ITM Power products are applicable to a range of energy storage markets including grid balancing, and storing renewable energy. | - Metal-hydrides for hydrogen storage
- Fuel cell membranes
- Hydrogen electrolysers
| | R&D Science and Engineering |
| Gravitricity | The Gravitricity energy storage project is developing a mechanical technology using gravitational potential for grid-connected energy storage. | - Gravitational energy storage
| | |
| Johnson Matthey Battery Systems | Johnson Matthey Battery Systems (Axeon was acquired by Johnson Matthey in 2012) is Europe’s largest independent designer and manufacturer of lithium-ion battery systems, for electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as high volumes of batteries for e-bikes, power tools and mobile technologies.
An EU-funded project SmartBatt (Jan 2011 -March 2013) aimed to develop the next generation of electric vehicle propulsion batteries which are both lighter and safer than their predecessors, and relied on technology and input from Axeon. | - Lithium-ion battery solutions for a range of applications
- State-of-the-art battery management systems
| | R&D Science and Engineering |
| Nexeon | Nexeon was founded in 2005 and has patented a unique way of structuring silicon so that it delivers extended cycle life and significantly increases battery capacity. Nexeon s silicon anode materials enable lithium-ion batteries with greater energy storage capacity and/or smaller battery size, or for greater battery life between charges.
Nexeon has offices in Japan and in the UK where it has a state-of-the art process development and manufacturing facility. | - Patented silicon anode materials for lithium-ion batteries
- Increased energy capacity and battery lifetime
| | R&D Science and Engineering |
| Invinity Energy Systems | UK-based redT and Avalon merged in 2020 as Invinity Energy Systems, a leading Vanadium Flow Battery company. redT has been developing its vanadium redox battery in the UK since 2001, partly supported by Innovate UK (formerly DTI & BIS) funding, and offers a modular product with capacity from 5kWh to 150kWh. | - Vanadium redox flow battery
| | R&D Science and Engineering |
| Ricardo - Energy and Environment | The TSB provided part-funding for the KinerStor project, announced in November 2009. Ricardo led a consortium including of industrial partners including CTG, JCB, Land Rover, SKF, Torotrak and Williams Hybrid Power, to demonstrate the viability of low-cost flywheel hybrid systems.
The Kinerstor project forms part of the history of flywheel development in the UK. | - Kinetic energy recovery systems in automotive hybrid drivetrain
| | R&D Science and Engineering |
| Siemens - Energy Storage Solutions | Siemens co-ordinated a Power-To-Gas and Energy Storage project, supported by Innovate UK. The project constructed an ammonia synthesis and energy storage demonstration system at the STFC site, which focussed on the use of ammonia as a carbon-free energy vector, and decoupling intermittent wind energy from the supply of firm energy to meet demand.
Collaborators with Siemens included the University of Oxford, Cardiff University and the STFC. | - Storage of Wind energy
- Synthesis of hydrogen and ammonia
- Electricity regeneration from gas
| | R&D Science and Engineering |
| GKN Innovation Centre | GKN acquired Williams Hybrid Power Ltd (WHP) in 2014. Williams was a member of the KinerStor project consortium project, part-funded by the TSB, and developed an electro-mechanical composite flywheel system for use in Formula 1 racing. The hybrid flywheel technology was integrated in a car that won the 24-hr Le Mans for two consecutive years. The Kinerstor project forms part of the history of flywheel development in the UK.
The technology provides a high-power solution for mobile or stationary energy recovery and storage, and is included in the development of next-generation vehicles at the GKN UK Innovation Centre in Abingdon. | - High power electromechanical composite flywheel system
| | R&D Science and Engineering |
