Long Duration Energy Storage powering the way to Net Zero

Over 200 delegates from across the UK met in Manchester and online on Wednesday 13th July to celebrate the successes of 2 flagship projects, the Longer Duration Energy Storage and Storage at Scale Projects.

The £68 million projects from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have so far funded 24 innovations which will help the UK achieve its goal of delivering net zero emissions by 2050.

In total, 20 projects came to showcase their innovations which will unlock the potential for a flexible energy system with lower costs, carbon reduction and improved resiliency.

With a live exhibition, there was plenty to see at the event, with projects covering everything from grid-scale pumped thermal energy storage systems to marine pumped hydroelectric energy storage.

Some of the examples on show included Gravitricity’s multiweight energy store demonstrator which stores and discharges energy by lifting and lowering multiple weights in a vertical underground shaft, and Cheesecake Energy’s FlexiTanker project which uses thermal and compressed air energy storage technology to integrate more renewables into the grid.

Sharing his thoughts on the showcase, Jack Wells, Project Manager from the Active Building Centre Research Programme, said: “The LODES programme has helped us bring groundbreaking, innovative ideas out of academia into reality. It’s connected us with 3 academic teams, and allowed us to forge strong, commercial partnerships with companies that are already in business in the sector.”

On top of this, there were also updates from BEIS on how it’s supporting the transition to a smarter, more flexible system that will save up to £10 billion per year by 2050 and create 24,000 jobs in the process, along with a roundtable on the investor landscape with speakers from the UK Infrastructure Bank and Shell.

Speaking about the event, Louise Jones, Energy Systems Lead at KTN, said: “It has been great to see how far these projects have come along and the impact they have to transform the sector. There has been so much innovation on show today, and this is only set to grow as we get the industry even closer to Net Zero.”