UK is falling behing in battery manfucturing
Lithium Ion batteries were developed in 1980 at Oxford University but were first commercialised by Japan’s Sony in 1991 for use in its camcorders.
Anil Srivastave CEO of Swiss Battery make Leclanche, said “UK needs to focus on how to commercialise innovations made in its universities and then scale them up quickly as their a yawning gap between waht works in the lab in university and what it takes to industrialise “.
Asian countries led by China, dominate global production of lithium-ion batteries with an 80 per cent market share and it will drop down to 78 per cent by 2025 while Europe excluding the UK, will incrase from 4 per cent now to 15 per cent. Britain’s hare in 2025 will be only 0.25 per cent.
Boris Johnson last month, in his first speech as prime minister siad the UK was “leading the world in the battery technology” to cut carbon emissions and tackle climate change. The reality is while UK universities have a strong record in battery research, Britain is far behind in manufacturing.
Leclanche has a joint venture agreement with Warwick University to try to spin out battery research breakthroughs.
As well becoming the leading technology for electric cars, Lithum Ion batteries are also being used to store energy, notably from renewable power such as wind and solar. The batteries serve an important source of back-up power , following blackout affect against 1 million UK homes and business this month, 475 megawatts of battery power was used to help restore electricity supplies. according National Grid.
Nicholas Beatty, co-founder and director of Zenobe Energy, a UK oeprator for battery storage facilities, said ” there is focused and huge investment in this sector in China and we are clearly behind.
Advance battery technology based on silicon anode lithium ion batteries accelerates the progress as carbon anodes – the incumbent technology used in lithium-ion batteries- have almost reached their capacity limit and their future potential is limited. Automotive battery development optimised for the higher rate charge and discharge required by HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs, specially catering for high power use in electric vehicles where power to weight ratio is critical. HYVE, a hyperdrive innovation has opened the UK’s largest independent battery manufacturing facility in Sunderland which can produce up to 30, 000 battery packs annually and also cater to international customer and moreover, support the government’s industrial strategy and 2050 carbon neutral target.
Chris Pennison, the CEO of Hyperdrive said “HYVE enables us to deliver a high-quality product, providing our customers with the right energy at the right time”.
HYVE has signed a supply agreement with the world’s largest online grocery retailer and JCB, to power its first electric excavator.
Demand for batteries is definitely coming and the UK could support a gigafactory, and requires one of the car manufacturer to do a deal with a battery cell manufacturer and that cel manufacturer to decide to locate in the UK.