From race to renewables

And now this shift is starting to have repercussions beyond motorsport. There has long been a technology overlap between the high-end automotive and aerospace sectors; but the adventures in electrical power systems have created an opportunity for F1-derived technology to find new applications in, of all things, renewable energy.

In 2008, British F1 team Williams diversified its business with the creation of Williams Advanced Engineering, and one of its key goals was to adapt the company’s kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) for wider use: in trains, buses and construction vehicles, but also in energy-storage systems for electricity grids. Now the firm is preparing to begin a two-year trial of its adapted KERS on two Scottish islands as a way of preventing power outages in communities that rely heavily on intermittent wind energy.

If changing F1 rules led to the creation of Williams’ energy storage technology, they also helped start the company’s journey into the renewables sphere. After the firm had developed and tested a flywheel-based KERS, sudden alterations to the refuelling rules meant the cars needed larger fuel tanks, forcing Williams to abandon the system and instead take advantage of recent advances in high-voltage batteries that could be more flexibly packaged in the car.