StorTera team (l to r): Brenda Park, Katie Inthavong, Paul Rowan, Gavin Park and Neil Taylor

Two companies have received support through the UK government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio to develop energy storage solutions.

East Lothian firm Sunamp will receive £9.25m to help trial its advanced thermal storage system in 100 UK homes, while StorTera, an Edinburgh based company, has secured £5m.

Sunamp wants to extend its existing heat battery to provide increased storage duration and capacity, and pair it with household energy systems to tackle periods of low renewables generation on the grid.

StorTera’s battery stores electricity which can be released to the grid at peak times when weather dependent technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels have periods of decreased energy generation. The battery will be installed at the Midlothian Innovation Centre (MIC) in 2024.

Dr Gavin Park, CEO at StorTera, said: “This is a really significant piece of funding for StorTera and we are excited that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy shares our ambition and believes we can lead the way in developing sustainable long duration batteries.”

The funding will see StorTera, based at Castlebrae Business Centre in Edinburgh, double its workforce to 28.

A new facility featuring laboratory and test facilities will be established at a new location in Scotland to scale up the manufacturing and development of the single liquid flow battery.

StorTera aims to build a circular economy by using recycled and recyclable materials such as a by-product of the wood industry and reusing sulphur from oil and gas.

Minister for Climate Graham Stuart said: “Accelerating renewables is key to boosting our energy resilience. Energy storage helps us get the full benefit of these renewables, improving efficiency and helping drive down costs in the long term.”

Battery power for RAF

Royal Air Force Typhoons will be powered up by 40 electric battery ground power units following a recent trial conducted with BAE Systems on a Typhoon Squadron.

The units will replace diesel powered systems and reduce harmful emissions by more than 90% whilst cutting running costs by 80%.

The battery powered units will deliver sustainable ground power to Typhoon jets at RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby, saving more than 3 million lbs of CO2.

The new units have a 95% reduction in NOX fumes and a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions. Over 40% of the CO2 footprint from Typhoon ground operations comes from the diesel units so this transition will almost eradicate those emissions.