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The University of Southampton
Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute

Southampton to work with industry partners on two energy storage solution projects funded by BEIS’ Net Zero Innovation Portfolio fund

Published: 25 March 2022
A diagram showing energy storage.

A consortium led by Energy Systems Catapult will receive £150,000 to develop a long-duration battery storage technology which could reduce the curtailment of wind power by up to 65%, helping Britain maximise its renewable energy potential.

The Catapult will work with the University of Southampton, Cumulus Energy Storage and Scottish Power Renewables (SPR) on the project, which will demonstrate the technology at SPR’s 96-turbine Kilgallioch wind farm in South Ayrshire – the UK’s fourth largest onshore wind farm.

Funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, the project aims to develop a rechargeable Copper/Zinc (CuZn) battery technology to provide long duration (4-12 hour) electricity storage with lower carbon emissions and lower costs compared to other storage systems. Read more here.

The second project sees the University of Southampton working with MSE International on the BlueStor port-based novel energy storage project. BlueStor is a port-based energy storage and distribution system that will help ports to decarbonise. It is based on organic flow battery technology that avoids many of the environmental disadvantages of conventional battery technologies, and is ideally suited to maritime applications.

The current phase of the BlueStor project which will demonstrate its feasibility has been successful in gaining BEIS funding under their Longer Duration Energy Storage (LODES) competition.

MSE International is the lead partner in BlueStor; energy and battery specialists, Swanbarton Ltd is supporting the battery engineering and construction as well as associated controls and interfaces; Houlder Ltd, marine and offshore engineering and clean technology specialists, is designing the battery platform and port/vessel interfaces. Pioneers in organic flow batteries, CMBlu are supplying the electro-chemistry for the flow battery. Read more here.

SMMI member and project lead, Dr Richard Wills said " Working with industry partners MSE International and Cumulus on these two projects, researchers at Southampton are assisting the development of two distinct large-scale electrochemical energy storage solutions”.

The Net Zero Innovation Portfolio is a £1 billion fund, announced in the Prime Minister’s ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, systems and business models in power, buildings, and industry.

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