"Revolutionary" energy storage business expands at AMP

ENERGY storage business Cumulus has expanded at the Advanced manufacturing Park Technology Centre.

The innovative company is taking on another 800 sq ft to develop its renewable battery technology. One of the biggest challenges in the energy industry today is issues surrounding storage and Cumulus is aiming to fill that gap it said.

The company has expanded its Yorkshire operations at the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA)-owned AMP Technology Centre where it has had a presence since 2012.

It said that with solar PV and wind farms industries set to grow rapidly, energy suppliers must find a way to store this clean energy so that it can be accessed at any time, whatever the weather.

Cumulus uses copper and zinc batteries (the same design used in the first modern day battery invented by Alessandro Volta in 1799) with new technology from two other industrial-scale processes to make them rechargeable and able to be produced on an industrial scale.

The company, founded by Nick Kitchin, Darron Brackenbury and Mike Hurwitz employs five in Rotherham and 10 in San Francisco.

It opened in San Francisco in 2014 with financial support from the UK Government and private investment. California is the first state to mandate energy storage, setting a target of 1.3GW of energy storage by 2020, so it was a strategic move by Cumulus to get a foot in both camps.

Nick Kitchin, founder and CEO of Cumulus: “Our location at the Technology Centre means we can work alongside some of the best minds working in the field and we’ve received a terrific amount of support from both the University of Sheffield and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

“It’s fantastic to be located in a place which can facilitate and support our growth – both in terms of physical space and enabling us to develop our product using the newest engineering and manufacturing technologies available, many of which are being pioneered right here at the AMP.”

The company has further expansion plans by spring 2017 ahead of mass market production of the technology within the next two years.

Adds Paul Taylor from Creative Space Management, which brokered the AMP expansion deal said: “This new letting is another example of a fantastic Yorkshire-grown technology company whose expansion can be nurtured and facilitated by the unique product we have here at the AMP Technology Centre.”

The AMP Technology Centre is currently more than 85% let with a limited number of spaces available ranging from 150 sq ft to 3200 sq ft.

 

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