EPSRC Funds University Research on Green Energy Storage

New electrode materials are essential for the next generation of hybrid and electric vehicles.

Perhaps one of the biggest issues with renewable energy is that the sun doesn’t always glow, the river doesn’t always flow, the wind doesn’t always blow, and crops don’t always grow. Energy storage is essential to ensure that the intermittency of renewable energies can be mitigated when integrated onto the grid.

To that point, the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has awarded the SUPERGEN Energy Storage Hub consortium £3.9 million ($6.6 million). The Hub will link engineering, chemistry, and materials teams from the Imperial College London and the Universities of Warwick, Southampton, Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, and Bath.

The consortium is led by Oxford Professor Peter Bruce. He said that “Energy storage is more important today than at any time in human history. It has a vital role to play in storing electricity from renewable sources and is key to the electrification of road transport to help cut carbon emissions.”

U of Bath’s Professor Saiful Islam.

The consortium will also include a team from U of Bath’s Department of Chemistry led by Professor Saiful Islam, an expert in Computational Materials Chemistry. They will be working on sodium and lithium batteries to electrify road transportation.

Prof. Islam’s research was awarded the Royal Society’ Wolfson Research Award (2013-2018). It looks into the simulation and modeling of battery materials. These models are capable of going down to the atomic scale.

Prof. Islam said that “The new Hub will aim to improve the performance of greener electrochemical, mechanical and thermal storage devices, and to develop new sustainable materials.”

He adds that, “The Hub will also work with our industrial partners to accelerate the pull through of basic research to scale up and prototyping of future low carbon systems. An important aspect of the programme will be a new generation of trained researchers in the clean energy sector.”

In addition to research from Universities, the Hub will also partner with industry. Namely Jaguar Land Rover, Sharp, EDF Energy, and more.

Images and Source Courtesy of U of Bath.