Major investment in battery technology to be launched in Birmingham

A £246m investment round in battery technology is being launched by Business Secretary Greg Clark in Birmingham today.

The announcement, which forms part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy, will include a competition to establish a centre for battery research, dubbed the Faraday Challenge.

The West Midlands is looking to plug in to the opportunities of being at the forefront of this sector and last month plans for a National Battery Prototype Centre in Coventry were revealed.

Clark is expected to tell an audience at a Resolution Foundation event that “we need to ensure that we find and seize opportunities to work more productively – as a country, as cities and regions, as businesses and as individuals”.

The first phase of the investment in battery technology will provide £45m for the Battery Institute, a research facility to make the technology more accessible and affordable.

An overarching Faraday Challenge Advisory Board will be established to run the challenge, which will be chaired by Prof Richard Parry-Jones.

Clark will say: “The first element will be a competition led by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to bring the best minds and facilities together to create a Battery Institute.

“The most promising research completed by the Institute will be moved closer to the market through industrial collaborations led by Innovate UK.

“And the Advanced Propulsion Centre will work with the automotive sector to identify the best proposition for a new state-of-the-art open access National Battery Manufacturing Development facility.

“The work that we do through the Faraday Challenge will – quite literally – power the automotive and energy revolution where, already, the UK is leading the world.”

One of Theresa May’s first policy moves when she became Prime Minister was to change the Department for Business’s title from Business, Innovation and Skills, to Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

It has since launched its Industrial Strategy green paper, which received more than 1,900 responses during the consultation period, and a white paper is expected to follow before the end of the year.

Clark added: “One of the strengths of an industrial strategy is to be able to bring together concerted effort on areas of opportunity that have previously been in different sectors, or which require joining forces between entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers, industries, and local and national government.”