The UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) has announced the winners of its energy storage innovation competition, several months after the announcement was due. REDT and Moixa Technology will receive a share of more than £5m (US$8m) to support continued research and demonstration of their innovative energy storage ideas.
REDT has developed a vanadium redox flow battery to store energy generated by wind turbines. The company is ready to design, build and demonstrate a 1.26MWh utility scale system of its grid scale flow battery technology. It has received £3.6m (US$5.7m) to continue in the pre-commercialisation of its system.
The system will be located in the Scottish island of Gigha, which has limited aging electricity connections.
London-based Moixa Technology Ltd has developed small battery storage units for installation in people’s homes to store power for use at peak demand times. The system shifts DC loads to the battery, which can be charged at low tariff times, to reduce peak grid demand and reduce energy bills.
Moixa will use their funding from DECC to install and demonstrate their storage units in about 300 homes across the UK. Moixa has been awarded a contract for approximately £1.5m (US$2.4m) to carry out its demonstration project.
Three more companies won a share of £0.9m (US$1.4m) to continue research and material development to improve energy storage systems for the UK electricity networks. Kiwa GASTEC at CRE was awarded £0.4m (US$0.6m) to investigate safety issues surrounding the use of hydrogen for energy storage; Sharp Laboratories received £0.4m (US$0.6m) for its work on residential and community battery storage systems; and EA Technology Ltd received £0.1m (US$0.15m) to develop a good practice guide on electrical energy storage for use in and with UK electricity networks.
