WMG to spearhead £5.4m battery research project
WMG at the University of Warwick has been selected to spearhead a new £5.4m project developing the next generation of battery packs for high performance, low carbon vehicles.
The move follows recognition for the university as the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK spoke for Electrical Energy storage.
The UK Automotive Battery Supply Chain project aims to exploit the latest innovations offered by battery technology.
Currently most of the technology within the battery systems used by the UK automotive industry is sourced from overseas suppliers, so this project aims to capitalise on the UKs strong battery technology research base and bring production back to the UK to serve demand from a changing automotive industry as its strives to deliver innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions and improve performance.
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The collaborative project is funded by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), which was set up at the end of 2013 as a 10-year £1bn partnership between industry and government to build UK industrial capability through the research, development and industrialisation of low carbon propulsion technologies.
The project, led by battery cell manufacturer AGM Batteries, will bring together UK innovations and knowledge from five partners; WMG, University of Warwick with its specialist battery knowledge and bespoke battery research facilities, Dukosi (a leader in smart battery management technology), Johnson Matthey Battery Systems (a battery pack manufacturer) and Cosworth (the world leading high performance powertrain developer).
Professor David Greenwood, Professor of Advanced Propulsion Systems at WMG and Head of the APC Electrical Energy Storage Spoke said: “WMG has invested heavily in battery system research and development over the last decade, and was recognised as the APC UK spoke for Electrical Energy storage in 2015.
“We are pleased to be supporting AGM, Dukosi, JMBS and Cosworth in taking this novel and promising technology towards production. The UK has a strong position in battery systems innovation, and we are delighted to be playing a formative role in its future.”
Ian Whiting, Business Development Director of consortium lead AGM Batteries, said the UK had a strong reputation for automotive development and manufacturing and was also very strong on battery technology research.
“This project pulls much of that together, creating a team of respected industry partners, each bringing a specialism to the table,” he said.
“AGM scales new cell types up to real-world manufacturing and we have developed a good relationship with WMG who provide valuable expertise in the early stages of electro-chemistry and design for manufacture. This enables much faster realisation of production standard cells.”
He said all of the research would benefit the various partners by bringing in new systems tailored to an automotive firm’s requirements.
“What we have is the basis of a complete UK supply chain for automotive batteries from ‘powder to power’,” he said.
“The project aims to prove leading edge, new technologies in a high performance system that can subsequently be manufactured cost effectively in the UK. This funding, in addition to the significant funding being invested by AGM and our partners will allow us to prove that we have the skills and ambition in the UK to produce world leading, innovative battery products.”
