Sir Henry Royce Institute - Oxford Equipment

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Energy storage (ES) is at the heart of the energy trilemma for clean, secure, and cost effectivesupply. The UK is strong in advanced materials engineering combined with unique geographicalopportunities for sustainable energy storage. Technology integration and strategic deployment areessential for the UK to be world leading and to exploit material technology globally. According toGE: "the development of energy storage technology is going to be one of the defining features of the21st centuries energy landscape....it is going to be a huge market and is going to render the utilitiesbusiness unrecognisable within a few decades". Fundamentally, the most critical and enablingaspect of energy storage devices are the materials from which they are made. For example, inlithium ion batteries, the anode, cathode, separator, electrolyte and current collectors are all highlyoptimised and compatible materials that are integrated at large scale ~5 B Li ion cells in 2016) usingbespoke manufacturing expertise.Energy storage is a key enabler for clean transport and completes the renewable energy cycle. Froma historical perspective, there has been a disparate and 'polarised' approach to renewable energygeneration and use - the focus has been on the two 'extremes': on one side, generation (e.g. windturbines, solar PV) and on the other side, end uses and applications (e.g. electric vehicles). However,the bridge to connect these into a working system is energy storage. Both mobile and stationaryenergy storage offer significant potential for the UK; on the other hand, without energy storage itwill be difficult to decarbonise the electricity grid and achieve the UK targets for CO2 mitigation. Theimportance of ES was highlighted in the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy greenpaper Building our Industrial Strategy in January 2017 that stated "Given the UK's underlyingstrengths in science and energy technology, we want to be a global leader in battery technology."ES comprises a wide variety of technologies, all particularly dependent on advances in materialsscience. Resources need to be carefully allocated on selected technologies in order to achieve theworld leading status. Following Oxford-led stakeholder meetings, workshops and discussion, theRoyce ES theme will focus on (i) electrochemical energy storage technologies such as batteries,supercapacitors and flow cells and (ii) thermoelectric and piezoelectric devices.