Faraday Battery Challenge Round 5 Innovation: CR&D

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £25 million in innovation projects across the two strands of this competition. This funding is from the Faraday Battery Challenge (FBC). Up to £23 million has been allocated for this collaborative research and development (CR&D) strand.

The aim of this competition is to:

• support business-led research and development of sustainable propulsion batteries
• support technologies with the potential to enter the automotive market within the next 10 years and, where appropriate, allow for early or synergistic entry into other sectors
• move UK battery innovations from technological potential towards commercial capability
• develop and secure material and manufacturing supply chains for battery technologies in the UK

This competition is split into 2 strands:

• Faraday Battery Challenge Round 5 Innovation: Collaborative Research and Development (CR&D) (this strand)
• Faraday Battery Challenge Round 5 Innovation: Feasibility Studies

This CR&D strand will support the research and development of the most promising, innovative and sustainable battery technologies for the propulsion of electric vehicles in the automotive sector​.

We are keen to encourage large, ambitious, impactful projects which will deliver breakthrough advances in sustainable propulsion battery technologies.

Your project must:

• have total costs between £500,000 to £12 million
• start by 1 January 2023
• end by 31 December 2024
• last up to 24 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• collaborate with other UK registered organisations
• be or involve at least one micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)

Academic institutions, RTOs, charities, not for profit or public sector organisations cannot lead or work alone, but can collaborate.

The Faraday Battery Challenge (FBC) aims to:

• ensure the UK automotive sector meets its net zero commitments in the required timescale, by enabling the development and scale-up of sustainable battery technologies
• ensure the UK prospers from a just and fair transition to electrification, by taking action to develop a world class intellectual and physical supply chain for batteries in the UK

The aims of this competition are to:

• support business-led research and development of sustainable propulsion batteries
• support technologies with the potential to enter the automotive market within the next 10 years and, where appropriate, allow for early or cooperative entry into other sectors
• move UK battery innovations from technological potential towards commercial capability
• develop and secure material and manufacturing supply chains for battery technologies in the UK

Technoeconomic research carried out in collaboration with the FBC, indicates that batteries for transport electrification can generally be classified into the following cross sector cell level performance clusters:

• power focused, weight sensitive
• power focused, cost sensitive
• energy focused, cost sensitive
• energy focused, weight and power sensitive

Projects must balance specific technical, market and business requirements for developing and emerging technologies and enable UK competitiveness across the battery value chain.

We are particularly interested in projects that are focused on the following:

• high power and high energy density, where safety can enable high performance applications
• low cost and lower energy density technologies with lower reliance on critical minerals such as Cobalt and Nickel
• technologies enabling high cycle life
• technologies developing sustainable batteries, for example, which improve resource efficiency, reduce energy intensity of processes or increase recyclability
• building and securing the UK supply chain
• development of more efficient and globally competitive manufacturing processes

Your project can achieve these through a combination of innovations in process improvement, cell chemistry, cell-to-pack efficiency and novel design concepts. We expect successful projects to increase productivity, competitiveness and growth for UK businesses.

Your project must focus on:

• extraction and processing of raw materials
• development and manufacture of cell materials and components
• design and manufacture of novel cell, module and pack concepts
• end of life and recycling technologies
• development of the UK battery supply chain
• enabling physical and digital technologies which support the design, development, optimisation and deployment of propulsion batteries

A briefing event was held on 24th May: the recording will be on our events archive page when available.

If you want help to find a project partner, contact Nikoleta Piperidou, KTM for Batteries.