The £130m UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) in Coventry is soon to be operational according to UKBIC management.
Described as a ‘first of its kind’ battery production development facility, the 18,500m2 publicly funded centre can be accessed by any organisation with existing or new battery technology, providing it will bring green jobs and prosperity to the UK.
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UKBIC is said to contain £60m of specialist battery manufacturing equipment, now in the final stages of commissioning with most equipment due to be commissioned by the end of the year. Organisations in the UK will be able to prove whether their technologies (from electrode and cell materials through to battery modules and packs) can be manufactured at the required volume, speed, performance and cost to be commercially successful.
The facilities have been designed for several users to run projects simultaneously in discrete areas, and will provide opportunities for training in battery production, organisers have confirmed. Currently, UKBIC employs 86 people including battery technicians, engineers and consultants, with plans for the number to reach 100 to support future project partnerships with industry and research organisations.
UKBIC’s managing director Jeff Pratt commented: “We’re really excited to be getting close to being operational and playing a key role in developing and stimulating the race to a greener future. Since moving into our new facility earlier this year, we have already begun to welcome manufacturers, entrepreneurs, researchers and educators, albeit in a controlled and socially distanced manner.
“Our battery development facility can be used by companies working on electric vehicles, rail, aerospace and domestic equipment and static energy storage, who can benefit from finding out whether their innovations can be scaled up successfully before committing to the huge investment needed for mass production.”
According to UKBIC, the specialist battery manufacturing equipment will cover the whole production process – from powders and electrodes to cell, module and pack assembly – and has been sourced from leading manufacturers to ensure it is as good as that currently being installed in Gigafactories.
The facility is part of the Faraday Battery Challenge, a government programme to fast track the development of cost-effective, high-performance, durable, safe, low-weight and recyclable batteries.
Tony Harper, Industrial Strategy Challenge director at Faraday Battery Challenge – UK Research and Innovation, said: “I’m delighted that three years after it was just a concept, UKBIC is already on its way to becoming a world-class battery manufacturing facility.
“The facility will help unlock the economic value to the UK of battery development during the country’s transition to a Net Zero economy, and will be made possible through the collaboration of manufacturers, entrepreneurs, researchers and educators who will use it.”
This is certainly needed as EVs are pushed harder. We are well behind the leaders, but this could take us nearer to being a leader.
An interesting observation about energy storage is that South Africa have a successful large scale energy storage facility using molten salts at Bokpoort which can store 465 MWh(e) in molten salt baths. The system is based on CSPs, but other heat sources could be used in UK possibly. There is a great need for large-scale electrical storage to complement the unreliable renewables.
@ Jack: You may remember I made the point some years ago, that CSP + molten salt storage is the ONLY form of Before-Generator Energy Storage currently in (very limited) use. It is, naturally, never going to be viable in northern latitudes and thermal generation (steam turbine) generally requires shut-down maintenance every few decades.
Cold (pressurised) water storage – BGES – has none of those drawbacks and its potential capacity has, to all intents and purposes, no practical limits. It can also make better use of CAES (negative reserve), as the round trip of electrical air compression to air turbine generation only works to an efficiency of something less than 50%.
97% of Europe’s storage is Pumped Hydro ELECTRICITY Storage, but PHES is geographically constrained, whereas BGES can be conveniently located anywhere at sea, preferably close to the coast, of course. Water pumped directly from tidal, wave and offshore wind RE into air/water accumulators has NO round-trip losses. NB: CSP + molten salt works the same way.
Wherever you have an elevated water reservoir near the coast, gravity can be used instead of air compression in an accumulator. e.g. There’s this ready-made, empty facility at Inchindown:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-49728273
A better engineer than I could calculate the energy-storage potential of 32 million gallons of water at an elevation of 100 metres. I think the cost of the clean-up would be well worth it. The marine energies off Invergordon (wind/wave and tidal) are an inexhaustible resource, measured in many TWh/year of electricity generation, which is both ‘baseload’ AND flexible – win/win. The ‘cavern’ could be pressurised to enhance power generation.
“The economic value to the UK, of battery development” is only in mobile applications. Grid-scale battery installations are a foolish, short-term expedient that’s far too expensive.
Thanks Jack for bringing up the topic of thermal batteries; they obviously integrate well/easily with all thermal power stations – providing extra capacity and improved load matching capability
I checked and the Bokpoort CSP has a capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) and runs at 380 degC (I think other CSPs have tried higher temperatures – but run into corrosion issues).
The scale of the storage and the power & energy are illustrative. 40m diameter x 14m height = 18000 cu m and 1‚300 MWht (thermal) which becomes 450 MWh (9hrs of operation) electric.
The power and temperature ratings seem similar to those of the SMR (nuclear) proposed.
I would hope that there is research being done in how to increase the operating temperature – and hence electrical efficiency (possibly using a gaseous working fluid and a combined gas/steam turbines). (Gas as it would reduce corrosion issues – and so too would a solid storage medium)