Manchester investment to develop energy storage technology
Manchester university will lead a collaborative project to pioneer technology for long-term energy storage.
Professor of thermal energy engineering Yasser Mahmoudi Larimi’s team won a £3million EPSRC Critical Mass Programme Grant to fund its work.
They will cooperate with colleagues from the University of Birmingham, the University of Liverpool, Cranfield University and Imperial College London to help develop novel GPStore technology.
This converts surplus renewable electricity into heat storing in solid particles, in insulated tanks, then converting the thermal energy back to electricity as required.
The intention is that this will help overcome natural variations in renewable energy supply sources and ensure a reliable and climate-resilient energy grid.
Larimi said: “This award represents a major step forward for UK energy innovation. GPStore addresses some of the most persistent barriers to long-duration storage - cost, scalability and environmental sustainability - and has the potential to unlock widespread renewable-energy integration across the UK and globally.”
Announcing the news, the University of Manchester emphasised that the UK is could require up to 100 terawatt-hours of long-duration energy storage to ensure a workable low-carbon energy that was stable and affordable.
“While today’s technologies, such as pumped hydro, compressed air and flow batteries, offer useful short- to medium-duration storage, they often face geographical and environmental constraints, high costs, or complex engineering, making them difficult to scale” said the university.
In addition to the five university partners, 16 industry representatives are also involved, among them EDF Energy, UK Power Networks, Fraser-Nash Consultancy and Manchester City Council.
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