The U.K. government is allocating £246 million ($321 million) for battery technologies. The U.K.’s energy regulator Ofgem is laying plans for a national smart electricity grid.
Increased battery storage will be key to ensuring that vulnerable and low-income customers benefit, according to business secretary Greg Clark. “If only we can capture [solar and wind power] then we can go from energy being a worrying cost to people, to being, if not free, then very cheap.”
The battery research funding is part of the new £1 billion Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to position the U.K.’s post-Brexit economy in healthcare and medicine; robotics and artificial intelligence; batteries for clean energy storage; self-driving vehicles; manufacturing; and satellites and space technology.
In addition to household battery tech, a portion of the battery funding will go to an institute to ensure “the U.K. leads the world in the design, development and manufacture of batteries for the electrification of vehicles.”
