Over the last five years the potential for energy storage to meet the challenge of balancing supply and demand of energy has been recognised by industry and policy makers. Energy storage also has the potential to meet global challenges which are driving energy system change; providing remote communities with access to power; meeting the energy demands caused by increasing urbanisation; and ageing energy infrastructure. Although the purpose of energy storage can range from meeting the needs of individuals and households, local and city level distribution networks to those of the high-voltage transmission grid, advances in energy storage devices and their integration into energy systems are needed to meet the required performance and cost levels.
In 2012 the UK Government invested £30 million in energy storage facilities under the ‘Eight Great Technologies’ call, providing state-of-the-art equipment in five university consortia for the development and testing of technologies that span application areas. Manifest consists of a truly interdisciplinary programme which builds on the Government’s investment, to tackle some of the key challenges currently facing the energy storage community. The research programme draws on the collective expertise and facilities that exist within the consortia, and will address questions that span the variety of energy storage technologies being developed - maximising the impact of all the test-bed energy storage demonstrators.
Investigators:
Dr Stan Shire
Prof Bob Critoph
Value: £4.01m
Start date: 30/09/2016
End date: 29/09/2020
