News + insights

In line with its industrial strategy, the Government is poised to invest £246m on battery technology – funding research and development breakthroughs – according to the Telegraph – with Greg Clarke, the business secretary, set to emphasise the importance of “cutting -edge energy plans”, including battery power and electric, driverless vehicles.

Academic and industry experts also agree that effective electrical energy storage will play a crucial role in moving to a world powered by low-carbon electricity.

In order to help meet society’s needs, researchers from multiple disciplines at Imperial College London are looking at solutions to help meet climate change targets and provide electrical energy storage, that together with renewable and traditional generation technologies, can meet the demand of clean and reliable electricity at a competitive cost.

In a Grantham Institute briefing paper, Dr Sheridan Few, Oliver Schmidt and Ajay Gambhir discuss the use of electrical energy storage alongside intermittent renewable technologies (such as wind and solar that cannot guarantee supply on demand by themselves) – and explore the storage technology options, their environmental impacts and the policies to support their development and deployment.

It’s not easy being green: Decarbonising transport and the grid by Dr. Billy Wu who works on additive manufacturing (3D printing) and electrochemical devices.

Environmental Impact of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles – Dr Billy Wu and Dr Gregory J. Offer

Automated, electric driving – a dream team to save the planet? by Dr Gregory J. Offer whose research is based around fuel cell, battery and supercapacitor technology, and their application, mostly in transport.

The video below illustrates work by researchers @ImperialMechEng – read more on their paper.