| Programme |
Funding Agency |
Description |
Committed Funds |
Period |
Representative Annual Spend |
| Ofgem Low Carbon Networks Fund (LCNF) | Ofgem | The LCNF ran from April 2010 until March 2015, with two tiers of funding.
The 1st Tier of the LCN Fund allowed DNOs to recover a proportion of expenditure incurred on small scale projects. - Sep 2010 – Mar 2014 SSE 1MW Battery, Shetland £1m
- Oct 2011 – Mar 15 SSE Orkney Energy Storage Park and trial £1.81m
The LCNF Tier 1 projects
2nd Tier of the LCN Fund provided DNOs with an annual opportunity to compete for funding for the development and demonstration of new technologies, operating and commercial arrangements. Up to £64m per annum was available through the LCN Fund.
The LCNF Tier 2 projects | | Tier 1: £15m total
Tier 2: Up to £64m per year | 2010 to 2015 | |
| Ofgem Electricity Network Innovation Competition | Ofgem | LCNF Tier 1 & 2, and IFI funding mechanisms were replaced by the Electricity Network Innovations Allowance (NIA) and Electricity Network Innovation Competition (NIC) funding mechanisms. The NIC is an annual opportunity for electricity network companies to compete for funding for the development and demonstration of new technologies, operating and commercial arrangements.
The 2019 NIC funding decisions included an award of £21.2m across one gas and two electricity projects. | | up to £70m per annum | 2013 onwards | Up to £70m per annum |
| ETI Energy Storage and Distribution Programme | Energy Technologies Institute | The aim of the Energy Storage and Distribution Programme was to enable and develop the UK’s energy infrastructure to manage fundamental long-term changes in - Energy generation source types and their geographic location
- Energy demand patterns and energy usage requirements
The original aim of an Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) Distribution Scale Energy Storage project was to develop and demonstrate a 1.5MW/6MWh energy storage device by Isentropic.
See Table 5.2 for more details.
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. | | £14m | 2012 - 2017 | £3m |
| DECC’s Energy Storage Technology Demonstration | Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) | In 2012 the DECC had two energy storage innovation schemes:
Feasibility studies into innovative and diverse energy storage ideas under the under the Energy Storage Technology Demonstration Competition (£0.5m for 12 organisations)
Improvement of components or materials used for energy storage systems and feasibility studies to explore how storage systems can be used in the UK electricity network, under the Energy Storage Component Research & Feasibility Study Competition. (£1.5m for 4 companies) | 4 Demo projects | £2m | 2013-2015 | £5m |
| Energy Innovation Programme | Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) | The Storage at Scale Competition (closed April 2019) objective is to demonstrate large-scale energy storage using innovative technologies, capable of operating cost-effectively with a target minimum output power of 30MW or minimum capacity of 50MWh for electrical energy storage technologies.
The programme does not include conventional types of energy storage technology i.e. lithium-ion batteries, sodium sulphur batteries, lead acid batteries or pumped hydro. | Up to 3 | Up to £20m | 2019 onwards | |
| Faraday Institution | UKRI | The UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) (aka the National Battery Manufacturing Development Facility) is part of the Faraday Battery Challenge. It will enable the development of the next generation of battery systems including battery chemistry, electrodes, cell design, and battery modules, and cover all aspects of battery manufacturing.
However most of the Faraday funding is for Strategic Research (Section 3) and for Applied R&D (Section 4).
See the 2018 UK Governmenrt announcement about the Faraday Battery Challenge. | | £80m | 2017 onwards | |
| 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.
See the 2018 UK Government announcement about the ISCF: ISCF Prospering from the energy revolution
Four energy demonstrators were funded in April 2019, which include storage to some extent: | | up to £102.5m | £25m for 2018-2022 | £5m |
| Name |
Description |
Sub-topics covered |
Total Project Cost |
Public Sector Funder |
Public Sector Funding |
Period |
| DynaPeaQ Energy Storage (Norfolk) | A dynamic energy storage system deployed by UK Power Networks, and designed and built by ABB is the first time an electrical energy storage device has been installed on an 11kV distribution network in the UK.
As well as providing dynamic voltage control, it will enable it will enable dynamic storage of surplus energy from wind farms, and can be utilized to level out peaks in grid loading and increase grid stability. Using this strategy, the power harnessed from the wind can be put to more efficient use than would otherwise be possible.
Monitoring and analysis in being undertaken by Durham University. | - Deployed by UK Power Networks in an 11kV grid in Norfolk
- Based on ABB’s SVC Light® technology, combined with Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery storage
- Storage capacity 200kWh, power delivery 200kW for 1 hour or 600kW short-term
- Reactive power control and dynamic voltage control
- Provides active power control and grid stability improvement
| | | | 2011 |
| Shetland 1MW Battery | This Low Carbon Networks Fund (LCNF) Tier 1 project commenced in 2010 with the aim of installing a grid scale energy storage device in Shetland integrated with an active network management system. This was one of the first grid-scale battery systems in the UK. Three battery technologies were considered: Sodium Sulphur (NAS); Vanadium Redox; and Zinc Bromide. Although a NaS battery (1MW 6MWh) was installed, this was removed in 2013 due to safety concerns, and a lead-acid battery system (1MW 3MWh) comprising 3166 cells was installed.
The criteria for project success were to: - reduce the peak demand on Lerwick Power Station
- for the battery to cycle efficiently to meet the needs and profiles of the islands’ generation and demand
- to increase the knowledge and understanding of battery operation within a network environment
| - NaS battery
- Lead-acid battery
- Peak lopping
| | Ofgem LCNF Tier 1 | £1m | Sep 2010 to Mar 2014 |
| Orkney Storage Park Project | One of the first large-scale battery systems in the UK was the Orkney Storage Park Project Battery at Kirkwall Power Station. The lithium-ion 2MW 0.5MWh 0.25h battery system used two 12 m containers for its batteries and one for its power conditioning system, and was installed in 2013 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. with Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution (SHEPD). Funding was provided by the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM) under its Tier 1 Low Carbon Network Fund (LCNF).
The trial project ran until March 2015 and investigated how large scale batteries could absorb renewable energy to resolve intermittency issues. | - Renewable energy intermittency
- Revenue streams including arbitrage
| | Ofgem LCNF Tier 1 | £0.3m Trial £1.51m | Oct 2011 to Aug 2012 Trial until Mar 2015 |
| Leighton Buzzard battery storage facility | The 6MW/10MWh facility in Leighton Buzzard commenced operations in 2014 and was the UK’s largest grid-scale battery storage facility at the time. It was funded by the Low Carbon Network Fund (LCNF), and helped to prove the technical and commercial viability of battery storage technologies.
It is owned by UK Power Networks and was offered for sale in 2019 following Ofgem’s decision that network operators cannot provide energy generation, including storage. | | £17.2m | Ofgem LCNF | £13.2m | 2013 to 2016 |
| ReFLEX (Responsive Flexibility) Orkney project | The project has been launched to digitally link distributed and intermittent renewable generation to flexible demand and storage. The project aims to create a ‘smart energy island’, demonstrating the energy system of the future, which will reduce and eventually eliminate the need for fossil fuels.
Led by the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), the ReFLEX Orkney project brings together an expert consortium of Orkney-based partners – Solo Energy, Aquatera, Community Energy Scotland, Orkney Islands Council and Heriot-Watt University – as well as multi-national energy company Doosan Babcock. | - Batteries
- Vehicle to grid (V2G)
- Electric vehicles (EVs)
- Hydrogen fuel cell
- Distributed power system control
- Whole System design and modelling
| £28.5m | UKRI Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund | £14.25m | Apr 19 - Mar 22 |
| Kilroot Advancion Energy Storage Array | The Energy Storage Array at Kilroot, Belfast, uses AES Corporation’s advanced 10MW battery-based energy storage facility, and is the first transmission grid-scale array in the UK. The array began operations on 5th January 2016.
The project consortium demonstrating the capabilities of the storage array includes AES, Queen’s University Belfast, System Operator for Northern Ireland (SONI), Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) and the Utility Regulator.
There are plans to increase the energy storage facility power to 100 MW.
EPSRC Project EP/N508408/1 provided funding for Queen’s University research. | - Balancing
- Integration of renewable energy sources
| £2.4m | Innovate UK | £366,985 | Apr 15 - Mar 18 |
| Pumped Heat Energy Storage (PHES) Demonstrator | Isentropic developed a Pumped Heat Electricity Storage (PHES) technology for large-scale energy storage. A £15m investment by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) enabled a 150kW / 600kWh demonstration system to be constructed. ETI continued the project with a Newcastle University Team (now at Durham University) who completed and commissioned the demonstration system, and collected the first performance data from a pumped heat energy storage system. The first tests indicated that with further testing and development, efficiencies in excess of 60 were viable.
The pumped-heat technology potentially placed the UK as a leader in the R&D of low-cost and grid-scalable electrical and thermal energy storage. | - Pumped Heat Electricity storage
- 150kW / 600kWh energy storage
| £15.7m | ETI | £14m | 2012 – 2019 |
