Two British firms landed an £8million award to develop a pioneering way to store electricity in liquid air.
Viridor Waste Management and Highview Power Storage will use the funds, from the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s energy storage research competition, to research cryogenic systems.
The aim is to store electricity in super-cooled liquid air reserves at a pilot facility in Slough, with the energy being returned to the national grid during times of high demand.
“DECC has given a British company a great opportunity to begin commercialising a home grown, innovative technology that has the potential to make a major contribution in terms of helping balance electricity systems in the future,” said the firm’s chief executive, Gareth Brett.
“The collaboration with Viridor will enable Highview to showcase the technology at larger scale, harvesting waste heat from landfill gas engines and demonstrating our readiness for deployment elsewhere.”
Last year Redt UK was given a £3million award to develop and test flow battery systems on Gigha, off the west coat of Kintyre, that would store excess wind energy for the local network.
“Storing energy will become increasingly important in the move towards a low carbon economy, and has the potential to save the energy system over £4 billion by 2050,” said energy minister Greg Barker.
“Energy storage systems are potentially revolutionary technologies – just imagine how much the energy system will change if we’re able to manage supply and demand better by storing energy cost-effectively, not to mention the benefits for British research and manufacturing industries.”
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