Government plans to make £20m available for two energy storage competitions could help to deliver payback of £10bn a year, if the findings of an Imperial College London report prove to be workable.
The new competitions are due to open to applicants within the next few weeks with the aim of getting the first projects underway early next year.
Competition one, the Energy Storage Technology Demonstration Competition, will offer organisations the ‘opportunity to secure funding to develop and demonstrate innovative energy storage technologies which can address the future grid-scale storage needs for the UK electricity network’.
Competition two, DECC’s Energy Storage Component Research and Feasibility Study Competition, will offer grant funding, on a competitive basis, to ‘support component level research in relation to storage technologies’.
Although the competitions have yet to be launched officially, DECC is encouraging technology innovators to register their interest now.
